Digital Technology for Digital Living.
October 29, 2004
Xbox Owner Sues Microsoft.
In a fabulous example of American societies inclination to sue everybody for anything, a Xbox owner has taken Microsoft to court because he says that Xboxes “stop working after minimal usage, after unreasonably, unconscionably, unusually and unexpectedly short amounts of time”. In other words he got unlucky and his hard drive screwed up. Now, were this Gadget Lounge’s Xbox, we’d fork out $AU100 and by a new 120GB drive and install it. Rather than the thousands in legal fees. Then again, I guess he’s not after playing virtual games anymore, he’s after real game. You think he could have come up with something better, like the Xbox is in fact a vehicle for Microsoft to deliver the devils work to every home in the U.S.
Details at news.com.
Gadgetman | Comments (0) | Console
ninemsn Continues Its Push Toward Online Music.
HMV have announced a joint alliance with ninemsn “that will see the companies provide CD, DVD and download sales from the Microsoft joint venture’s website”. In itself that isn’t very exciting, given that it’s just an advertising agreement. It starts to look a little more interesting when you consider the recent tidbit of information that we pointed out that SplaTT discovered recently. Media Player 10 lists ninemsn as the option for music in Australia. More can be found here. The article points out that downloads “will continue to be provided by British firm OD2 in Windows Media format”.
Gadgetman | Comments (0) | Music
Godcasting.
Sydney’s St Barnabas Anglican Church is making the sermons for the last three years available for download as MP3 files, according to news.com.au. The only problem is, God doesn’t have the best bandwidth, and the server seems to be unavailable.
Gadgetman | Comments (1) | General, Portable
October 28, 2004
Perth Flash Mob.
Dammit, wouldn’t you know it. The first Flash Mob we hear about that happens to be near by, and Gadget Lounge can’t make it. Details at dragonchrome.
“Flash point: 1pm, Friday 29th October 2004
Where to go: Assemble in the vicinity of the clock in the centre of Hay Street Mall at the entrance to London Court. Above the clock four knights, known as “Tournament of Armoured Knights”, circle in the window when the clock chimes.
When to arrive: Time your arrival for 5 minutes to 1pm, i.e. 12.55pm and appear to be waiting for the clock to chime. If you arrive really early, synchronise your watch to the clock and take a wander. You could do some window-shopping.
What to wear: Please dress and act the part of a person on their lunch break, a shopper, a tourist, a lurker, or a people watcher, or you could just be yourself.
What to do: At the bell beginning to chime at 1 pm, put on your head-band, or leg warmers, let your hair down or take off some clothes to reveal your best lurex. It’s the eighties! A battery run boom-box will start playing a song.
Now is the time to show your best (or worst) Flash Dance moves!”
Thanks to Ponderance for the link, and we agree, please take photos!
Gadgetman | Comments (0) | General
Rejected Special Edition iPods.
Rejected Limited Edition iPod Concepts, including “Ashlee Simpson iPod: Special vocal equalizer plays a random voice track each and every song. Also comes with free SNL tickets and a $50 gift certificate for “acid reflux” medicine. Paris Hilton iPod: It looks good, but does nothing. WARNING: Hard drive not included. The Jacko Pod: This special edition iPod comes out of the box black, but fades to white over time.”
Gadgetman | Comments (0) | General, Music
October 27, 2004
Bluepulse Goes Shopping.
Mark Jones, of Filtered, again reports on more geek news. This time it’s Sydney’s Broadway Shopping Centre going Bluetooth, or Bluepulse as they like to call it.
“When you have bluepulse on a relatively new Bluetooth mobile phone, you can view shop specials from just about anywhere in the centre and even find a particular shop, an ATM or a toilet with step-by-step directions automatically appearing on the screen of your mobile. You can also locate where your friends or relatives are in the centre and send them FREE text messages.
You can check movie times, movie trailers and even have your shopping list appear from your home computer.”
Bluepulse is in fact a company that has developed location based software for the mobile phone. So it makes sense that a shopping centre would be it’s first target for the deployment. Although these are their main targets, I’m guessing we’ll see them trying to plug it into clubs, pubs, hotels and other gathering places in the near future. The only issue they’ll have is whether people will be willing to pay for the use of the product, when everyone is getting used to free information and messaging. $AU5 per month doesn’t seem overly dramatic, if locations spread around Australia. Find out more at the Bluepulse website.
Related Item: Brand New and Unlocked Nokia 8800 Arte. Worldwide Shipping. Only USD 967.00
Gadgetman | Comments (1) | Mobile Phone, Wireless, Portable
iPod Photo Is Alive.
Another rumour confirmed true by Apple this morning. The iPod Photo is official. The new iPod, with 40GB or 60GB of storage, has a 2-inch LCD screen that can display up to 65,536 colours, 220 by 176 pixel resolution, perfect for photos or album art, a 40GB model, and extended battery life of up to 15 hours. Using iTunes 4.7, which has also just been released, you can point to a photo directory and have it store all your photos on the new iPod. The beauty of it is, that you can also connect the iPod to a TV or projector via the AV connector, or the iPod Photo dock that comes with the device has a S-Video output. No news on whether you can play video from the device, but storing TV or movies for play-back anywhere would be a neat feature with the S-Video output.
Available in 1 to 2 weeks you can get the 40GB for $AU799 or 60GB model for $AU949.
Gadgetman | Comments (0) | General, Music, Portable, Digital Camera
U2 iPod Official.
U2 fans rejoice, they’ve sold out and you can buy in as Apple confirm the rumours from last week. “Like no other, iPod U2 Special Edition stands out. Jet black, it bears a prominent red Apple Click Wheel and, on the flip side, the autographs of each U2 band member. Available for just $569, it comes with the signature white iPod earbuds.” The Apple online store says shipping in three weeks.
For those in reach of an iTunes Music Store, see the earlier article, I4U reports the “iPod U2 Special edition comes with a voucher that gives $50 off “The complete U2″ digital box-set from iTunes Music store (avail. in November) and a U2 poster.”
Also announced is a Black iTrip from Griffin.
Gadgetman | Comments (0) | Music, Portable
October 26, 2004
Digital TV Tops 530,000 In Australia.
Digital Broadcasting Australia reports that by the end of September there is an estimated 530,000 digital set top boxes and integrated digital TV sets.
“The average monthly sales for the September 2004 quarter were just over 40,000 units. This compares to a monthly average of just 10,000 units for the same period in 2003.”
Perhaps if stations offer more than just statistics with a “vision-in-a-box”.
Gadgetman | Comments (0) | Digital TV
New Australian iTunes Rumour.
Think Secret discuss the potential release for OS X 10.3.6 in the near term, and another Australian iTunes rumour. “While hardly insider information anymore, Think Secret tipsters say that along with the release of a U2-edition iPod at Apple’s media event on Tuesday, October 26, the company will also roll out local iTunes Music Stores for several European countries, as well as possibly Australia and other countries.”
It is a rumour, but please let this be true! Maybe we’ll know tomorrow morning. Holding breath ….
Update : (October 27, 2004) … exhale … Austria, close but no cigar, gets iTunes, as well as eight other european countries and Canada. The wait continues.
Gadgetman | Comments (0) | Music
Bigpond… uh… “Assist”
Telstra have come up with another way to offer customers “better” support. Could they have actually gotten worse?
Available to ADSL, Cable and Dial-up users, Bigpond Assist will monitor your connection, and as soon at it detects a problem, it’ll let you know, probably by crashing or causing a blue screen of death, at a guess. It also gives Bigpond a way to alert users of network outages and other problems that may be affecting their connectivity. We wonder if their network will be able to cope with all the additional traffic that sending outage notifications to every user will bring.
Bigpond Assist would “not replace the 24 hour, 7 days a week help desk” says Bigpond director Justin Milne, but it “will be able to take care of a lot of the less complex problems that occur.” Will it improve the availability of the Bigpond network, because there’s some magic we’d like to see.
Ben | Comments (0) | Broadband
My Home Entertainment Expo 2004.
Mark Jones, at Filtered announced My Home Entertainment Expo 2004 today. “Australia’s Largest Showcase of Home Entertainment Products and Services!” The list of things on show includes home theatres, dvd players and recorders, game consoles, digital cameras, etc. etc. All the things that Gadget Lounge loves to drool over. $AU15 entry, or $AU11 for invalid pensioners, $AU13 for seniors card holders and children (under 15 accompanied by an adult) free. All at Hall 2, Sydney Exhibition Centre from Friday October 29 to Sunday 31.
Gadgetman | Comments (0) | General
October 25, 2004
Digital Melbourne Cup.
DBA has news that Channel 7 will have a special broadcast of the Melbourne Cup on their digital channels. The event will be broadcast in widescreen and a separate channel will provide statistics with a “vision-in-a-box” segment. Nothing incredibly compelling, but at least they’re doing widescreen.
Gadgetman | Comments (0) | Digital TV
Murdoch’s DLP TV.
Want a TV owned by Rupert Murdoch? Smarthouse has a story on Samsung’s new L7 Rear Projection DLP TV that they claim Murdoch owns two of, and it’s availability in Australia. The TV is able to reduce the size of the base by using a projection system that projects vertically from the base and then on to the screen. “As a major bonus for consumers, each L7 comes with a matching home theatre kit which includes a full 5.1 surround sound set-up with tall boy speakers. For easy set-up, the L7s come with auto sound calibration systems. The 50” L7 (SP50L7HX) will retail for $9999, while the 56” model (SP56L7HX) will retail for $10,999.”
Gadgetman | Comments (0) | Video
Basshorn Madness.
Madness! Why would anyone do this, and why do I wish I had one. Thanks for the link James.
Gadgetman | Comments (0) | Music
October 22, 2004
Skype’s 1 Million Simultaneous Users.
Gizmo has a nice little article on the current state of Skype’s growth.
“October 20, 2004. Today Skype reached a new milestone and had more than 1 million simultaneous users globally connected to each other at the same time. As of Tuesday, October 19, Skype has served more than 2 billion minutes of free Skype-to-Skype calling.
Skype is the fastest growing, globally available communications tool in history, the previous others were Netscape, ICQ, Hotmail & KaZaA. More than 12.9 million users from every country in the world account for over 28 million downloads of Skype software in the first 14 months. ”
Gadgetman | Comments (2) | Software, VOIP
iPod Parties.
It seems like the New York iPod Party phenomena is filtering down to Australia, and obviously it hits the club scene in Melbourne first.
“Tonight, at what is believed to be Australia’s only iParty (or iPod dance party), punters are given the opportunity to DJ. Choosing two songs from a selection of nearly 10,000, they wait like shoppers at a deli counter, until their number is beamed onto a laptop screen.”
If you’re in Melbourne, get yourself to the Bourgie Bar on one of the second Fridays to check it out.
Update : (October 22, 2004) I4U points to a iDJ iPod Party at The Hague.
“The iDJ’s are the persons with an iPod, or any other mp3 jukebox who registar by email. They have to name the genre that they will play on the night, to order a T-shirt with a personal number, this is also the number for their turn on the turntable. The iDJ’s plug their own iPod into the 2000 Watt mix-set, operated by the iHost and can play, always together with the next iDJ, 3 times about 3.30 min. per song. This will end up in a possible playlist of a total unknown song, or a self composed number, mixed with a oldie from 20 years ago or a hit from the present. This can bring harmonie or battle between 2 total strangers. ”
Awesome stuff. The cultural shift of music around the iPod continues.
Gadgetman | Comments (0) | Music
October 20, 2004
Australian Telco Milestones
Whirlpool have a quick article about some of the major telco milestones that have recently been reached. Telstra have recently hit their target of one million broadband connections, that was announced by CEO Ziggy Zwitkowski in 2000. It appears that they’ve reached their 5 year goal earlier than anticipated, despite allegations of price fixing and uncompetitive behaviour. Over 500,000 subscribers are Telstra’s own, with another 495,000 that utilise Telstra ADSL infrastructure, but source their connections from competing ISPs.
Optus have also announced that they’ve got 250,000 broadband subscribers, with 190,000 cable connections and 60,000 ADSL users. Optus also reports that the bundling of their broadband connections has been quite successful, with around 95% of ADSL customers opting to include one of Optus’ other services as well.
Ben | Comments (0) | Broadband
iBook Reloaded
Apple have released an updated iBook. Changes are fairly basic, but include faster G4 processors and the inclusion of 802.11G across the range. Bluetooth is still optional.
The 12.1″ iBook now sports a 1.2 GHz G4, and the 14″ is 1.33 GHz. They also both utilise an ATI Radeon 9200 GPU with 32 MB of RAM. Superdrive remains an option on the 14″ iBook.
The changes to the iBook are welcome, but here at Gadget Lounge we use PowerBooks, and we wonder what Apple have in store for upgrades to them.
Ben | Comments (0) | Portable
October 18, 2004
Eco-Friendly Gadgets.
It must be a sign. First we see the brand new Hydrogen Fuel Cell Bus that’s winging it’s way around Perth, gleaming, clean and pumping steam into the air. It really is a sight to see. Especially the steam vaporising almost as soon as it leaves the exhaust on the roof. We have a 2 year trial of the technology, and might just be worth jumping on to see how it sounds and feels.
Then we get another email from our favourite reader, James, pointing us to the new waterless dishwasher developed by three University of New South Wales students. They’ve called it the Rockpool. The story is at Engadget.
Gadgetman | Comments (3) | General
