What Are The Most Stylish Laptops And Ultrabooks?
Laptop Buying Guide 2012: How To Find The Right Laptop For You
Spotify Finally Makes Its Australian Debut
Top 10 Pervasive Tech Myths That Are Only Wasting Your Time
HTC One XL Review: The Best Is Getting Better
The Lies Everyone Tells On Dating Sites
We’ll be hitting our stride this week in local coverage, starting with on-location blogging from two major events taking place in Sydney and Melbourne. We’ll be on the floor at CeBIT Sydney tomorrow and Wednesday, then down to Melbourne on Friday and Saturday for PMA Photo Imaging World.
Check out the info at the sites. Any special requests for coverage, shoot us a message and we’ll try and hit the booths you want to hear about.
Remember the most ridiculous Windows video ever? This doesn’t compare to that, but it does have Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry shilling for Microsoft’s “new” Windows 95 OS. There’s gotta be more hilarity found in watching two people who have no idea how to use computers struggle with screensavers and the upgrade process, but we don’t have 40 minutes to go through all four videos. But you might.
This isn’t a “before they were famous” video, this is a “we really need some more cash for our gigantic mansion” video. The best part was that back then nerds were still nerds, and even the narrator calls them “propellerheads”. Nice.
Three more after the jump.
Sony really knows how to party. It wasn’t enough to have topless ladies at the God of War II European unveiling, they had to go and decapitate a goat and put it on display. Not only that, they invited visitors to stick their hands down the neck, grab out some intestines (not the goat’s own, they were procured elsewhere and shoved inside), and eat them. Fantastic.
Best yet, the entire thing was documented in their official PlayStation magazine, whose 80,000 print run has been recalled thanks to the stunt. Nice work Sony. Next time, just call it a day after you get the nude ladies. – Jason Chen
Slaughter: Horror at Sony’s depraved promotion stunt with decapitated goat [DailyMail]
Recently I got all excited about a pretty cool-looking networked 3.1 home theater system from JVC. Since it seems most of the innovative networked products are coming from brands that aren’t as easy to find at Best Buy, and since JVC said it supported a wide range of file formats including DivX, I called it in to take a closer look.
Although setup was easy, and its picture and sound were about what you’d expect from a $1,000 home-theater-in-a-box, the networking and file management aspects of the machine (i.e., the hard part) was just not finished. Seriously, it needs more time in the QA oven before it will be anything like good eatin’. As JVC is learning, it’s not enough to just meet the bare minimum of HDMI and DivX support.
Not one of the biggest news weekends, but here are a few highlights to brighten your Monday morning:
Plasma shields are on the way. And we’re not talking about protecting your flat screen from a Wii-mote.
iPhone photos may have ended up on Flickr – gone now. Yes, you can edit EXIF data, but there was more to the leak than just that…
Internet radio stations told they must pay royalty fees, no matter what music they play. Yet more evidence the US copyright system is completely out of touch with reality. And ours has to be in line with theirs, thanks to ‘free trade’!
New York Times outs a Google Phone? Throw away comments in big newspapers can get people into trouble.
The NYTimes has a boilerplate article about Microsoft, Yahoo! and Google going after the cellphone. This line is interesting, though:
Google has gone so far as to build a prototype phone with its own software inside, according to one person who has seen it.
Question: How do you think the fact checkers worked through that one? – Brian Lam
Big Money in Little Screens [NY Times, thanks Mac P.]
Yes, the joy of weekend shift. That’s 3 times in 6 weeks, you know. Anyhow, I’ve got a wedding to dash off to in a bit (not mine) but I’ve been using some cool stuff on my phone that you should try. Especially if you’re at a wedding and are going to be fiddling with a gadget while everyone is doing the electric slide. Hypothetically.
Jott: Setup a free account, dial a number, leave yourself a voice message, and you get a transcribed note in your inbox for later reference. Easiest way to leave notes if you have an aversion to pencil and paper like I do.
ShoZu:Shozu plugs into media sites like Flickr and Youtube, so you can upload your stuff with a click or two. Works on plenty of phones, and plenty of media sites. I’d like more blogware interfaces, to be honest, but you can’t complain about free ware.
and…
Panasonic’s new 1080p set is the best plasma ever.
That’s what Gizmodo friend Gary Merson of HD Guru says. The colors were the most accurate, the 1080p signals were processed at full bandwidth with no loss of data, the black levels so deep as to be untestable, and the contrast ratio amazing.
In conclusion, the Panasonic TH-50PZ750 is simply the best high definition display I have ever reviewed.
Doesn’t hurt that the Panny’s SD card slot can play back H.264 at high def. For Gary, this is the set to beat, and I’m not one to argue with a guy who’s been testing TVs longer than I’ve been out of junior high school.
The price? A MSRP of $3999, which is maybe why the just trounced Pioneer PRO-FHD1′s MSRP was dropped from $8000 to $5000 (without speakers BTW.) (Pioneer’s new sets, based on all new tech will debut this Summer, so look for a good fight then.) – Brian Lam
Exclusive- First Review of the Amazing Panasonic TH-50PZ750U Plasma [HD Guru, thanks Gary] [Photo is of the 700 series Panasonic, but they should look similar.]
If you still can’t bring yourself to buy an Xbox 360 Elite—even though its HDMI gives you the best output—take a look at Colorware. Yes, the same people who are coloring up Sidekick 3s, MacBooks, and MacBook Pros are helping you enhance your Wii, Xbox 360, and PS3s.
Prices start at just $99 for a complete one color job, but start to get higher as you start to make garish neon green accents and a safety orange face. They’ll even throw in a free controller coloring, but each subsequent one costs you $25. Or, if you don’t actually have a console yet, you can buy one outright from these guys already colored.
Despite not really being into the coloring scene, we’re actually warming up to the idea of having our consoles modded for just about a hundred bucks. – Jason Chen
Product Page [ColorwarePC]
Amidst the uproar over the egregious royalty rate hike for Internet radio stations, engineered by RIAA-spinoff SoundExchange and handed down by the Copyright Royalty Board, we missed a detail we should have noticed. Some commenters suggested simply listening to music under non-restrictive licenses. But apparently that won’t work.
“The recent U.S. Copyright Office ruling regarding webcasting designated SoundExchange to collect and distribute to all nonmembers as well as its members. The Librarian of Congress issued his decision with rates and terms to govern the compulsory license for webcasters (Internet-only radio) and simulcastors (retransmissions).”
