Archive for April, 2009
Routon previews its Android MIDs
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on April 30th, 2009
[Via Slashgear]
Filed under: Handhelds
Routon previews its Android MIDs originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsBlackBerry Storm 9530 build 4.7.0.141 leaked, possibly on the way to Verizon release
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on April 30th, 2009
Filed under: Software, RIM, Verizon Wireless, BlackBerry OS
Want a head start on the very firmware Verizon might be launching next month? If you’re a Storm 9530 owner, of course you do — and like clockwork, it’s now been leaked for everyone to enjoy. The version you’ll be looking for here is 4.7.0….
Scientists Use Laser Beams and Engineered Algae Viruses to Control Your Mind [Look Into My Eyes]
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on April 30th, 2009
That's right: Scientists will achieve mind control. By shining laser beams. Directly at cells in your brain. Which have been intentionally infected. By a blue-light sensitive virus. That they made in a lab. From algae.
According to Wired, you can really do some fancy stuff inside the mind by injecting an engineered virus into cells then shining a blue laser beam at them. The point is to pinpoint neurons that aren't doing what they should, and using this very pinpointy process to kick start them without playing havoc on the rest of the brain.
To what end? We're not at Cybermen just yet, but one of the proposed uses is actually prosthesis controlled by optics instead of electrodes as they are now. If this isn't at all scaring you yet, check this bit of Wired's story out:
Crucial to the technique is that the virus is only injected into a very small part of the brain, and only a certain class of neurons, once infected, actually turn the channel on.
Or what? Please tell me, or what?
Turns out, it's... Or else the treatment would resemble the kind of clumsier brain teasers, like drugs and electrodes. MIT neuroscientists Ed Boyden and Xue Han have already done it with primates, which, as everyone but Mike Huckabee knows, are close relatives to the human. Prior to that, fish, flies and rodents were all lasered up, with successful mind-control results. I am so happy I live in the present day, and not some quaint, almost cute past where all I had to worry about were influenza viruses and low-flying aeroplanes. [Wired]
Acer: Windows 7 coming October 23rd pre-loaded on Z5600 AIO
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on April 30th, 2009
Filed under: Desktops
Acer: Windows 7 coming October 23rd pre-loaded on Z5600 AIO originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments10p a track? Fair play
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Technology on April 30th, 2009
Online charts may be struggling, but cheap (and free) music abounds, says Chris Salmon
In April 2008, the BBC's website launched its ingenious Sound Index, which trawled the web (analysing 10m comments, plays and views) to chart the most popular 1,000 artists and tracks online. Sadly, it didn't take off: a year later, bbc.co.uk/soundindex says that the "trial is now closed", offering only the vague promise of a future relaunch. Into that breach steps We Are Hunted, an Australian site with the similar aim of compiling a chart of the web's 99 most popular songs, using data from social networks, forums, blogs and P2P networks. It's an attractive, intuitive site, and throws up some interesting results: at the time of writing, the relatively obscure Austin, Texas trio White Denim topped the global chart. You can hear each of the 99 songs thanks to streams hosted elsewhere. The problem is that these streams are often of a dodgy remix or duff cover. We Are Hunted is still in its testing phase, and there's clearly work to be done if it's to fulfil its promise.
The 6,000-plus MP3s in the newly launched Free Music Archive won't top any global popularity surveys, but if you're looking for an eclectic range of music that's entirely free and legal to download, this is your place. The site was established by the New Jersey radio station WFMU, which has recruited nine "curator" organisations to select songs available to share under Creative Commons and other licenses. This quality control ensures that, as the site's tagline puts it, "It's not just free music; it's good music". The best way to browse is to select a genre - anything from bluegrass to free jazz to breakcore - then hit play to listen through the selections. If there's anything you particularly like, simply click the arrow and the MP3 is yours. For those of a mind that musicians deserve to be paid for quality work, the Free Music Archive offers a "tip" button, allowing you to donate directly to its artists.
Meanwhile, the Scottish site Ten Tracks has hit upon the idea of selling 10-track MP3 compilations for just £1. Even at 10p per track, they say enough profit is generated to give artists "fair pay"; though obviously, the more their tracks are downloaded, the more an artist will receive. Several indie labels have embraced the idea, with Fat Cat, One Little Indian and Soma Records all offering very decent bundles of their artists' tunes, alongside Ten Track's own compilations. It's unlikely that the 150 artists featured on the site, which include Björk, Brakes and King Creosote, will retire on the proceeds. But receiving some exposure and money is surely still better than getting neither.
Switched On: Windows 7, Non-Starter Edition
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on April 30th, 2009
Ross Rubin (@rossrubin) contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.
Microsoft is making many well-received improvements in Windows 7, but may be in for a black eye on its Starter Edition because of growing misconceptions that it has optimized and recommended the limited Starter Edition for netbooks. For instance, the ad copy for the Apple commercial jabbing Starter Edition almost writes itself.
"Hello, I'm a Mac."
"And I'm a PC."
PC is trying to juggle.
"Hey, PC. What's with the juggling act?"
"It's my new operating system. See, it only lets me run three programs at a time so I need to stop doing one thing when I want to do another. Really keeps me on my toes thinking about which three programs I should use. Of course, I could upgrade to a more expensive version that gives me the capabilities I should have had from the beginning."
PC drops the balls.
"Hmm, really? Every Mac lets you run as many programs as you want out of the box."
"Well, that would be nice. I'd sure like to send someone an e-mail about that."
"That's a good idea, PC. Why don't you?"
"Because I had to quit my e-mail program to say that."
PC starts trying to juggle again. Cut to iMac with "Mac" desktop
Continue reading Switched On: Windows 7, Non-Starter Edition
Filed under: Laptops
Switched On: Windows 7, Non-Starter Edition originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | CommentsWhen will Windows 7 hit the streets?
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Technology on April 30th, 2009
At a press conference today, Acer said it would ship a Windows 7 machine on October 23, though it promptly qualified that as "Windows 7 ready"
Acer, one of the world's three biggest PC manufacturers, held a press conference in London this afternoon to announce its exciting new Timeline series of notebooks, and upstaged itself by appearing to pre-announce Windows 7.
One of Acer's future products is the Z5600 PC all-in-one running Windows 7, which Acer said would be "one of the key products going into Christmas". Launch date? "It will on the shelves on October 23."
"Have you just given away the launch date for Windows 7?" asked ZD-Net's David Meyer, amid much laughter.
From his seat in the audience, Acer vice president Massimo D'Angelo, in charge of Europe, said it would be on the shelves running Windows 7 "or Windows 7 ready: then we will have the final news."
D'Angelo said Windows 7 was "already available, and seems to run very well" -- albeit that's the RC (release candidate) version. If it isn't actually released by October 23, however, "there will be free upgrade options from Vista. I believe that, like last time, you will only pay the freight cost," he said.
Microsoft has not announced an official release date, and John Curran, the American who runs Microsoft UK's Windows Client Group, told me that Windows 7 will be launched before 1 June 2010, when the free RC beta expires.
"We're on track to deliver within three years of Windows Vista," said Curran. "The final date will be governed by the quality of the build," based on the performance and reliability metrics collected from millions of test PCs.
However, Curran also confirmed that Microsoft was not planning to offer RC2 and RC3 builds for testing. The new RC version, available to programmers today, is therefore the final hurdle before the release of Window 7. It therefore seems a reasonable bet that it will appear before October 23, and that Acer has not given away the launch date. It could, in fact, be out 6-8 weeks before that.
However, Microsoft will be calculating not just when Windows 7 is ready to ship, but how soon PC suppliers will be able to deliver Windows 7 machines to the shops. Since Acer only sells PCs at retail, not directly, Microsoft could well consider its needs before it decides on the final date.
Phoenix Motorcars undergoing restructuring, still committed to EV space
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on April 30th, 2009
Read - Original filing
Read - Update from Phoenix MC
Filed under: Transportation
Phoenix Motorcars undergoing restructuring, still committed to EV space originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Apr 2009 17:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Email this | CommentsPerfect Cocaine Simulator Will Never Make It to the iPhone App Store [IPhone]
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on April 30th, 2009
This is funny because a) it's ultra-realistic and b) it is precisely one of the main uses of the iPhone in many clubs all around the world. And you gotta love their on-your-face sales pitch:
Be the envy of in-crowd. Get ejected from nightclubs. Shock and amaze your so-called friends. Get oral sex from Z-list celebrities.
Cocaine in a paragraph, boys and girls. The page claims that the software can be yours for five British pounds ($7.40) and a jailbreak, but people have alerted us that it may be a video. [iSnort]
Lord Help Us All: Gizmondo the Movie? [Gizmondo]
Posted by: Gadget Boy in Gadget News on April 30th, 2009
Wired's story on Gizmondo, the gadget company fronted by Swedish con artist Bo Stefan Eriksson, has been optioned to be made into a film.
I just want to know, is Eriksson getting paid for his life rights? Because I'd hate to think he's making a dime after the shit he pulled.
The original article starts out with the famous crash which brought attention to Eriksson, eventually ending his ring of lies:
THE BUMP IN THE ROAD that ended Bo Stefan Eriksson's fantastic ride is practically invisible. From 10 feet away, all you can see is the ragged edge of a tar-seamed crack in an otherwise smooth sheet of pavement. Only the location is impressive - a sweet stretch of straightaway on California's Pacific Coast Highway near El Pescador state beach, just past the eucalyptus-shaded mansions of the Malibu hills. On that patch of broken asphalt, there's barely enough lip to stub a toe. Of course, when you hit it at close to 200 miles per hour, as police say Eriksson did in the predawn light last February 21, while behind the wheel of a 660-horsepower Ferrari Enzo, consequences magnify.The Enzo has less than 6 inches of ground clearance, and at that speed, it took only a slight scrape under the front bumper to launch the vehicle. The airborne Ferrari landed in a skid that in a blink became a sidelong drift. Tires shredding, the car bounced over the shoulder onto a grassy slope wet with dew. All Eriksson could do was hold on as the slithering, swiveling Enzo again achieved liftoff, then slammed broadside into a wooden power pole.
Gizmondo's story, one of massive fraud, mob ties and wrecked Ferraris, would make a fine film, but being optioned is far from a guarantee that the movie will ever get made. I hope it does, if only so that some good can come of the whole debacle. And so that more people can confuse Gizmodo with Gizmondo. I love that!* [Hollywood Reporter via Robert Capps, editor of the story who looks like a supertrooper]
*Not really.
