Archive for January, 2007
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Wednesday, January 31st, 2007Filed under: Gaming
With Wii modchips busting onto the scene all over, well, at least two of them now, it’s about time we got an idea of how well these things actually work. MaxConsole just took the CycloWiz for a spin — the second modchip to be announced, but supposedly the first one to be hitting the market — and they seem to dig what they see. For starters, the installation is a snap, with “quick-solder” holes to make it a bit harder for you to screw things up, and an LED indicator to let you know if you do. As for compatibility, everything works as advertised, with Wii and GameCube backups working just like original discs, and GameCube hombrew working just fine as well. The big drawback is a lack of import support, which was done to make sure the Wii can’t detect the modchip. This is solved on the GameCube side of things by GCOS, an open source hombrew OS for the GameCube that allows you to toggle your region, but sadly there’s no hope yet for Wii games, since Wii homebrew is not supported. The upshot is that Nintendo has little chance of a software update that can disable this mod, but it also sort of defeats one of the main purposes of a modchip in the first place. There are also graphics problems with some PAL games right now, but future GCOS updates should resolve those. Otherwise, there’s plenty to love, including full support of “audio-streaming” GameCube games, and multi-disc titles. The chips should hit resellers on Friday.
[Via Digg]
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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time
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Google Q4 Revenues Exceed Expectations, Up 16% over Q3 2006
Wednesday, January 31st, 2007Google’s 2006 Q4 earnings beat Wall Street expectations when they announed today that revenues were up 67% over Q4 2005 and 16% more than last quarter.
From the Google Earnings Press Release:
Q4 Financial Summary
Google reported revenues of $3.21 billion for the quarter ended December 31, 2006, an increase of 67% compared to the fourth quarter [...]
Thinklabs’ iPod-based digital stethoscope
Wednesday, January 31st, 2007Filed under: Peripherals, Portable Audio
To say we’ve seen our fair share of iPod accessories would be a mild understatement, but we’re pretty sure this one takes some sort of cake. This little Stethoscope Recording Package from Thinklabs bundles a ds32a Digital Stethoscope, 2GB iPod nano and an XtremeMac MicroMemo, for the ultimate in digital stethoscope recording. Sure, Thinklabs’ Digital Stethoscope can hook up to anything with a line-in jack, and we know that there are more than a few audio players that carry that line-in functionality without needing an add-on and wouldn’t look so terribly hokey (though we’re pretty sure none of them can match the MicroMemo’s 16-bit fidelity), but we’re still pretty well enamored with the juxtaposition. The $495 pricetag isn’t as exciting, but that’s a small price to pay for 1000 Heartbeats in Your Pocket.
[Via Make]
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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time
Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Let’s talk Podcasting Stats
Wednesday, January 31st, 2007Over the past 2 years I have had the opportunity to view on a monthly basis a considerable number of podcast stats through the analysis of raw log files. This month I processed nearly 800 active shows.
One thing that I have realized is that the large majority of podcasters really do not have the tools to analyse the data to a depth needed to get a handle on exactly what is happening with their show.
Late last year I tasked my team at RawVoice to build a statistics engine that will give podcasters real data that many are lacking. The goals of that statistics engine is very high.
While I am not hung up on stats I understand the importance they play in helping podcasters understand where their show is headed and who is tuning in.
In a very short time we will be introducing this stats engine at Blubrry.com. While we will only open it up initialy to shows that are earning revenue through us we expect a rapid ramp up of availability to all on the network.
Aqua Teen Hunger Force viral ads cause Boston bomb scare
Wednesday, January 31st, 2007Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Transportation
Oh, you viral marketers and tricksy Adult Swim promo squads, what’ve you done now? No longer content with offending parents and making the male aged 18-30 demo chortle with glee at their New Jersey debauchery, it would appear Aqua Teen crossed over into real life to wreak havoc promoting the upcoming ATHF movie. Geeky Lite-Brite-like visages of the Mooninites caused shut downs in several transit arteries in Boston, including Interstate 93, the Longfellow Bridge, and Storrow Drive, leaving thousands asking WHAT HAPPENED TO THEIR FRICKIN’ CAR?! Strangely, Turner stated that these viral ads have been in place in 10 major cities for between two and three weeks, which leaves one to wonder why no one noticed the strange, pixelated cartoon characters flipping the bird until just this afternoon, and just in Boston.
[Thanks, Dan]
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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time
Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Verizon signed up to get Treo 700wx
Wednesday, January 31st, 2007Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds
Sprint scored a rare rib on CDMA rival Verizon when it went straight past the Verizon-exclusive Treo 700w to launch the 700wx, but as the old saying goes, all good exclusivity agreements come to an end. New rebate verbage spotted by a customer on Verizon’s website makes mention of a $100 rebate on the 700wx — $150 for the soon-to-be-outmoded 700w — and even better, the rebate expires February 19, suggesting that there’s a sliver of hope we’ll see a launch in the next few weeks. To be fair, the re-upped model is nearly identical to its predecessor save for an extra 32MB of RAM, correcting a major complaint from current owners but otherwise adding little to no excitement value. No word on pricing, but hey, at least we know we’ll be getting $100 off whatever it might go for.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time
Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Rollins resigns, Michael back as Dell CEO
Wednesday, January 31st, 2007Filed under: Desktops, Laptops
With growth on the decline and competition heating up, it looks like Kevin Rollins has had enough of the cutthroat PC game, and has resigned his posts as Dell CEO and board member. Now Michael Dell has returned to the helm of his baby, after handing over the top spot to Rollins in 2004. Shares of Dell are up now that the founder is back in his place, but HP is all up in his grill right now, and the company warned on Tuesday that it would be missing analyst earning expectations for its fiscal fourth-quarter, so it’s clear Mike is going to have an uphill battle in the attempt to return Dell to its former undisputed status atop the PC industry. Mr. Dell, who will retain his position as chairman of the board, said in a press release, “Dell has tremendous opportunities ahead of it, I am enthusiastic about Dell 2.0, which includes our plan to provide the best customer experience, build a strong global services business and ensure our products deliver the best long-term customer value.” Dell 2.0, huh? We’re down, let’s see what you’ve got.
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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time
Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Intel fleshes out a few more Penryn deets
Wednesday, January 31st, 2007Filed under: Desktops
Just to keep us all guessing, Intel has announced that it will be “launching” 45nm chips across all of its main processor categories in Q1 2008. This would seem to run counter to prior roadmap plans that call for Penryn to start shipping near the end of 2007, but apparently those plans are still on, Intel just won’t be busting out the ticker-tape until 2008. Alongside this confusion, Intel has also fleshed out info ’bout its first two Penryn-based products, the quad-core Yorkfield and dual-core Wolfdale desktop processors. Wolfdale packs a 1333MHz front-side bus, with up to 6MB L2 cache, while Yorkfield is essentially a pair of Wolfdales glued together, though the front-side bus is reduced to 1066MHz. The chips also mark the return of Hyper-Threading of some sort, but according to Intel: “The official company policy is that our engineers have left the door open for Hyper-Threading, but we cannot confirm or deny any future plans for the technology,” so it sounds like we won’t know exactly what Intel is planning to do with that dubious technology it killed off when building its Core and Core 2 products until we get a bit closer to launch time.
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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time
Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Wii mod gets those GameCube ports up front where they once belonged
Wednesday, January 31st, 2007Filed under: Gaming
Cheap Ass Gamer “hollowfreak,” who apparently had quite a bit of time on his hands, but not a moment to spare for reaching around his Wii to get at the GameCube ports, just modded up his Wii to redirect the ports that oh-so-important 5-inches to the front. In the process, hollowfreak doubled his Wii heft, not to mention totally killed the sexy, but in all he really didn’t do a bad job for himself, and the extra blue LED lights never hurt. Plus the mod looks to be modular, so hf can always get his Super Smash Bros. Melee game on for a few hours, and then pop off the hefty mod when he’s in a mood to impress the ladies. Check out the insides and another angle after the break.
Continue reading Wii mod gets those GameCube ports up front where they once belonged
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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time
Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Clean install workaround for Vista upgrade discovered
Wednesday, January 31st, 2007Filed under: Desktops, Laptops
Well, it looks like those hoping to do a clean install of Windows Vista with an upgrade-only edition of the OS may not be entirely out of luck after all, although they’ll still have to jump through a few hoops to get it done. According to Daily Tech, you can get around that pesky requirement to have Windows XP or Windows 2000 already installed on your PC by instead using the upgrade DVD to first install a 30-day trial version of Vista –that’s done simply by not entering the product key when prompted to do so during the installation. Once you’ve got the trial version of Vista up and running, you simply start the installation process all over again from within Vista, this time entering the product key when prompted. After that’s done, you should be staring at cleanly-installed, fully-functioning version of Vista, not once having set foot in Windows XP or 2000. As Daily Tech points out, this seems to suggest that any Vista upgrade DVD can function as a full retail copy of Vista, although it would also seem to be something that Microsoft could put the kibosh on pretty quickly, so you may not want to lose sight of that copy of your old OS just yet.
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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time
Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
