The latest ad in Microsoft's retaliatory $300 million "I'm a PC" campaign is all sorts of cute. This spot, set to air during the Grammy's, is a departure from some of their other practices. Now, how will the unstoppable force that is Apple and Hodgman bury this tiny tot? We await Apple's next retaliatory-retaliatory ad spot. [LiveSide — Thanks, Lorenc!] Source[gizmodo]
Monday, February 9, 2009
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Auto-tuning, the practice of digitally "repairing" off-key vocal tracks, is more visibly prominent than ever. But it's even more ubiquitous than people realize, and some musicians and fans aren't happy about it. Auto-tune really only entered public consciousness with the release of that one Cher song that's somehow still playing in malls more than a decade later. And lately, some rappers, most notably T-Pain and most distressingly Kanye West, have taken up the robotic vocal torch. Even stark minimalist Bon Iver used the software, made by Antares Audio Technologies, on his most recent EP. But Time's recent article explains that auto-tune is used on just about every major-label pop album these days, from Britney Spears to Faith Hill. It's now assumed that auto-tuning will be applied to almost any recording that doesn't specifically refuse it. Some, including legendary producer Rick Rubin and possible love of my life Neko Case, aren't fans of the near-required use of auto-tuning. Rubin notes that many classic recordings were only achieved after repeated attempts, and that emotion and passion can be lost with the use of the software. Case, in typical brash honesty, declared, "That shit sounds like shit!" regarding auto-tuned singers, and compared it to the artificiality of diet soda. We often forget that it's the imperfection of vocals that can make them the most powerful. There's nothing wrong with glossy bubblegum like T-Pain, but to use auto-tuning indiscriminately can absolutely kill honest emotion. On the other hand, it's hard not to like T-Pain; his unabashed lack of singing ability doesn't make him a lesser pop artist, and his pledge to create an iPhone app that would allow anybody to auto-tune themselves into a crooning robot actually sounds like a great idea. Britney, you can fix your warble all you want, but leave the serious music alone, okay? [Time] Source[gizmodo]
Monday, February 9, 2009
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Who says Canada sucks for gadgets? Oh, wait. Well, Ottawa's Winterlude festival includes this huge icy BlackBerry (Curve 8900?), showing hometown hero RIM's contribution to the gadget world. Way to represent, eh? [thanks, Ryan!] Source[gizmodo]
Sunday, February 8, 2009
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Intel is now shipping their new 1.66GHz Atom N280 processors to PC makers—a chip should give netbooks a performance boost with HD video. The 1.66GHz N280 is only a 0.06GHz jump over its N270 processor, but the 667MHz front-side bus and the pairing of the GN40 chipset with its hardware-based 720p HD video decoder is really where its at. That will lead to better HD viewing with less power consumption. However, Nvidia is still looming looming on the horizon with their Atom-ion plaform and its full on 1080p capability. If you simply can't wait for that to go down, the Eee PC 1000HE will be the first netbook to ship with the N280/GN40 combo and is now available for pre-order. [PC World via Wired Gadget Lab] Source[gizmodo]
Sunday, February 8, 2009
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The embattled OLPC program, already reeling from job cuts and salary decreases, is making one final attempt to stay afloat: Open source everything and hope enough companies copy the design to make it profitable. The news was delivered by OLPC frontman Nicholas Negroponte himself, during remarks at this week's TED 2009 conference. Blogger Ethan Zuckerman, reporting from TED, said Negroponte hopes the new open source hardware design will be "something that everyone copies." "Commercial markets will go to no end to stop you. It's sort of a tragedy," Negroponte said. "So the future of One Laptop Per Child is to go 'from uppercase to lower case,' to 'build something that everyone copies.'" According to Negroponte, the open design will lead to companies worldwide creating 5 to 6 million machines, per month, in three years time. That's a lot of little mean green machines with those weird alien wifi antennas. And while this technically sounds like more of a licensing deal than true "open source," it will be interesting to see what companies cook up using the OLPC design over the next few years. If it catches on, that is. [Ethan Zuckerman via CNET] Source[gizmodo]
Saturday, February 7, 2009
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According to an ars technica source (who has no track record with insider knowledge), Windows 7 pricing will start at $200 and grow from there. UDPATE: ars has retracted this story. • Windows 7 Starter: $199 • Windows 7 Home Premium: $259 • Windows 7 Professional: $299 • Windows 7 Ultimate: $319 Our gut response is that $200 is just too high for both Windows 7 Starter (which, incidentally, is not supposed to be purchasable by anyone but OEMs) and Home Premium—and that the entire price range is too compressed (four versions within $120 just seems like a waste of everyone's time). But what do we know? How much would you pay for a Home Premium version of Windows 7? [ars technica] UPDATE: As we said before the jump, ars has since retracted this story. Source[gizmodo]
Saturday, February 7, 2009
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Passing around the salt and pepper isn't any kind of strain on our bodies, but what if you could roll it on the table instead of lifting it? Isn't that what the first cave man envisioned when he "invented" the wheel? Yes, I believe it is. Hit stores in March '09. [Menu.as via Trendsnow via Dvice] Source[gizmodo]
Friday, February 6, 2009
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The period that Sprint customers can escape from their contracts without paying early termination fees has been extended to March 15th. Although, you might want to hold tight with the Palm Pre on its way. [BGR] Source[gizmodo]
Friday, February 6, 2009
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Who said whiny bloggers can't get anything done? Microsoft admits they screwed up with the User Account Control security hole, and how they responded to it. It'll be patched in the next Windows 7 release. Here's what that patch entails: First, the UAC control panel will run in a high integrity process, which requires elevation. That was already in the works before this discussion and doing this prevents all the mechanics around SendKeys and the like from working. Second, changing the level of the UAC will also prompt for confirmation. In other words, a script you download can't disable User Account Control without you getting a warning flag that it's being disabled. Even if Microsoft did resist at first, it definitely deserves props for listening to users and making the changes in the end, even if on one level (absolute consistency) it was kind of right. [Engineering Windows 7 via Technologizer] Source[gizmodo]
Thursday, February 5, 2009
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The thumbsaver is about as simple as a gadget can get -- a magnetic stick with a handle holds nails in place while you bang away recklessly with a hammer, comfortable in the knowledge that your digits are far from... The thumbsaver is about as simple as a gadget can get -- a magnetic stick with a handle holds nails in place while you bang away recklessly with a hammer, comfortable in the knowledge that your digits are far from danger. The flat tip of the rod has a groove to keep the nails straight. I love the simplicity of this thing, but it would be useless for me. Unless I can accomplish a task from the comfort of my laptop (or better, my iPod Touch) then I'm not interested. I'd rather offer my lazy, good-for nothing-housemate a crisp ten Euro note to take the trash out than to actually leave the house myself. Bonus: getting him away from the computer means he'll stop updating Facebook all day long with his latest hippy yoga breathing techniques. Seriously, dude. Get a job. The Thumbsaver costs around $20. Never Hit Your Thumbs Again [Toolmonger] Source[Wired Gadget Lab]
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
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After the aggressively lame "unveiling" we were all subjected to yesterday, details have finally emerged about the $10 Sakshat "laptop." It's not a laptop! Or much of anything, really. The thing, as described by the Times of India: A storage device containing megabytes of data info which can be accessed by a user by connecting this device to a laptop. Oh. That description sounds an awful lot like a USB drive, observed through computer-illiterate eyes. However, the only picture available of the device shows a small white box with lots of attached cabling, indicating that there's more happening here than simple storage. You know, something exciting, like networked storage! Either way, FAIL. This whole fiasco was compounded by a few factors: deliberate misinformation by people close to the project, the complete and utter incompetence of the Indian tech press (we still don't even have a solid idea what this thing is) and the condescending eagerness of Western news outlets to believe that such a product, which would have been dismissed as totally impossible if announced here, was inexplicably plausible because it was coming from the mysterious foreign land of India. Whatever the case, there is no $10 laptop, and there probably never will be—at least not from this project. [Times of India, photo via ITCafe] Source[gizmodo]
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
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Filed under: ABC, CBS, The CW, Discovery-HD, ESPN-HD, HBO-HD, NBC, Showtime-HD, ListingsWhat we're watching tonight: Fox (720p) presents Game 4 of the World Series at 8 p.m. CW (1080i) lines up Valentine at 8 p.m. followed by Easy Money at 9 p.m. NBC (1080i) has Football Night in America at 7 p.m. followed by The 40 Year Old Virgin at 8 p.m. ESPN (720p) has UCF/Tulsa college football at 8:15 p.m. ESPN2 (720p) airs IndyCar Racing @ Australia at 11 p.m. CBS (1080i) has Cold Case at 9 p.m. followed by The Unit at 10 p.m. ABC (720p) brings Desperate Housewives at 9 p.m. followed by Brothers & Sisters History (720p) drops in the season premiere of Cities of the Underworld at 9 p.m. Showtime (1080i) has Dexter at 9 p.m. followed by Californication HBO (1080i) tosses in Calzaghe/Jones 24/7 at 8:30 p.m. followed by True Blood, Entourage, Little Britain USA and The Life & Times of Tim AMC (720p) has the season finale of Mad Men at 10 p.m. Discovery (!080i) has Storm Chasers at 10 p.m. HDTV Listings for October 26, 2008 originally appeared on Engadget HD on Sun, 26 Oct 2008 18:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
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Are we really this hard up for gasoline? Are you absolutely certain that there's no other way?? In truth, Sierra Nevada Brewing Company has teamed up with those E-Fuel guys we told you about. E-Fuel has developed a system/machine to turn simple sugar and yeast into alcohol and then ethanol. (Really, it's not so different from brewing beer.) Sierra Nevada is installing an EFuel100 MicroFueler in-house to turn 1.6 million gallons of otherwise discarded yeast for brewing (yearly) into the source ingredients of what we're sure is a very, very tasty high grade ethanol gasoline. We can drink to that. (beer, not ethanol) Source[gizmodo]
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
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Here's another potential solution for the iPhone 3G's lousy battery life: The SOLiCharger, a solar-powered, lithium-ion battery pack. You can use the SOLiCharger a couple of ways: You could leave it sitting around in the sun for four hours, and... Here's another potential solution for the iPhone 3G's lousy battery life: The SOLiCharger, a solar-powered, lithium-ion battery pack. You can use the SOLiCharger a couple of ways: You could leave it sitting around in the sun for four hours, and then when you need to charge your iPhone you simply plug the accessory into the handset — essentially a solar-powered backup battery. Second, you can charge the SOLiCharger via USB with your computer — like a traditional backup battery. Third, rather than pre-charge the accessory, you can plug the SOLiCharger into the handset and leave it to replenish the phone under the sun, kind of like Superman after he gets beaten to a bloody pulp. Our first impressions: Sounds like a pretty nifty gadget considering the number of options you have. We've seen plenty of similar battery accessories for the iPhone, and this one appears to be mash-up of many previous ideas. SOLLight is selling the gadget for $40.Product Page [SOLLight] See Also: IPhone Case Summons Powers of the Sun IPhone 3G Add-on Extends Battery Life Power Slider Protects iPhone, Doubles Battery Life Photo: SOLLight Source[Wired Gadget Lab]
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
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Google's released Latitude, a Maps tool that allows for automatic tracking of friends in real time, using a laptop, Symbian 60, Blackberry, WinMo and soon, iPhone or Android. galleryPost('googlelatitudem', 14, ''); Laptops and cellphones (when not using GPS) can locate to a fair level of accuracy using geotagged Wi-Fi and cellular tower points in a database that Google's collected on its own, perhaps while doing Streetview photography. Or you can set your location manually. Google told me that there's no set standard for how often the map updates your location. Rather, they have an algorithm that depends on how often the device has moved, historically, and how much battery your device has left. You can also sign out of the service entirely, and set per user preferences on whether or not certain friends can see your location at all, or if only on city-levels of accuracy. Google says its been useful for family members to find out if they're stuck in traffic, or on their way home. I tested the service with some people I know, but its been hard to say if its useful for a guy who has loved ones in generally predictable places. I generally know where my friends are, more or less, or can find out by texting them. I'd probably use this service more often while skiing or picking up friends at the airport, but not day to day. I mean, sure, I can turn off my privacy, but wouldn't people used to seeing your location at all times be suspicious if you suddenly turned off permissions when you want privacy? Then again, maybe it would be nice to know when my father is playing golf in HK (all the time) or when Lisa is eating at her favorite place in Tokyo for Ramen, or where my brother is on tour with his band. That would be interesting, I suppose. But most of the time, most of us are in front of our computers. Until we're not. And that's where the phone clients come in. Most phones will be able to keep the map location updated in the background. Except the iPhone. What the iPhone users can do, as a work around, is to lock the phone with the Google app running. That'll keep the phone updating until batteries die. The Blackberry, WinMo and Symbian phones and laptops/Desktops can use Latitude now by downloading the most recent version of Google Maps or hitting Http://google.com/latitude. The iPhone gets it with an updated version of the increasingly powerful Google app, soon, as does the Android powered G1. Source[gizmodo]
Monday, February 9, 2009
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