Saturday, May 26, 2007
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DirecTV Sat-Go Portable Receiver Seen on…TV
11:22AM Seamus Byrne | Here’s early video of a Sat-Go, DirecTV’s portable satellite receiver, as presented alongside innocuous collection of Grads and Dads gadget gifts on NBC. See it? Just Fast Forward past the Carbon Fiber Zero Halliburton case, a snowboarding jacket from Burton’s Audex line (in June? Nice timepeg, guy.) – Brian Lam More »
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The Five Cheapest PCs in the World
10:29AM Seamus Byrne | Forbes has a list of the world’s Cheap PCs, starting at $85, like the MicroClient JrSX, and the Zonbu we wrote about lovingly the other day. There’s also a few paragraphs dedicated to the OLPC, which as you know ain’t for public consumption right now, and an AMD powered decTOP. The Zonbu is the most powerful on the list with its 512MB of RAM and 1.2GHz intel-compatible VIA chip, but its $99 price tag is negated by its $13 Amazon S3 subscription commitment for 2 years. Consider that a pittance for the 25 GB of online storage the Zonbu syncs your data to. And never forget that a lot of used PCs can be had for far less. Find em at Craigslist and at the flea markets. – Brian Lam galleryPost('cheappcs', 5, '5 Ultra Cheap PCs'); Cheapest PCs in the World Right Now [via HickeyGear] More »
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Steampunk Ray Guns
9:10AM Seamus Byrne | Originally starting out as just sketches by Greg Broadmore, these ray guns were eventually made by David Tremont and Weta—the same people who created the special effects and props for the Lord of the Rings Trilogy—these steampunk-inspired toys are the best thing you could buy a nerd who loves pretending to shoot things. They’re sold at a price of $690 each, which makes them tens of times more expensive than normal toy guns, but tens of thousands of times less expensive than building an actual working steampunk ray gun. galleryPost('steampunkguns', 7, 'Steam Punk Guns'); – Jason Chen Steampunk Rayguns [Wired] More »
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Apple Stock Moves Based on Nothing… Again
9:03AM Seamus Byrne | This CNBC lady reports on a rumor from some two-bit mall employee and the stock goes up. Investing is emotional, yes, but how much confidence can you really get from a ball of fluff like the June 20th report? It ain’t news. Late June has always been the target. I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone episode. – Brian Lam Apple Rises After IPhone Media Report [AP] More »
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CNet Says New Samsung LCD HDTVs Best Ever
8:42AM Seamus Byrne | David Katzmaier of CNet reviewed one of the new Samsung LN-T4665F LCDs. He says its the nicest LCD he’s ever seen….which somehow translates into a tepid 8.3 rating. They were impressed with the HDMI 1.3 port, the individual color controls. But they disliked the reflective screen, which kicked up massive glare in lit rooms. They noted it isn’t as dark as the ultra black 92 Series Sharps, like the LC-52d92u LCD, but the Sharp does have that blotchy lighting issue, so this the set to have. AU: This TV we’re talking about is locally known as the M8 series. Why on earth do they have such nutjob complicated names in the US? M8, R8 and S8 is so much better than all that other crap. More »
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Blu-ray Players Issue Update to Fix Pirates of the Caribbean Disc Playback
8:40AM Seamus Byrne | If you’ve just purchased the first two Pirates movies on Blu-ray in order to get psyched up for the third one, you probably came up with a whole lot less Johnny Depp and a whole lot more firmware problems than you expected. Apparently at least two players—Samsung’s BD-P1200 and Sony’s BDP-S1—have difficulty playing back the first two movies. And by difficulty, we mean they throw up their hands and give up like a fat man at the starting line of a 10K. Samsung’s already released a firmware update here, which fixes the problem. You can either burn the firmware update onto CD or download it via the BD-P1200’s LAN connection. Which brings us to another point. Why isn’t the Ethernet in the Blu-ray spec? More »
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Microsoft Cans Dev Conference Night Before Apple Unveils Leopard’s Full Features
8:12AM Seamus Byrne | So Microsoft canceled their Professional Developer Conference, which former MSoftie Bobby Scoble says means two things: no new Windows and no major new Internet strategy this year. Isn’t something like the day before OS X Leopard gets its full feature unveil at the Apple Developer Conference? The OS Engineers working at Apple must be having a good time with this news. – Brian Lam Microsoft Cancels PDC [Scoble, thanks tipster] More »
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Hearing Aid/Phone Combo Looks Cool, Seems Obvious
8:10AM Seamus Byrne | You got this thing wedged in your ear because otherwise you can’t hear what the damn whippersnappers are all yappin’ about. Then along comes this other earpiece you’re supposed to jam in your ear, so that you can talk on your cellphone while driving or juggling or whatever the kids are doing these days. Along comes some German designer who says, why not use the same contraption for both purposes? Figures. More »
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Free Steve Jobs T-Shirts
8:08AM Seamus Byrne | Wait, wait, they’re not free as in beer. I mean free as in liberation. Even though Real Steve doesn’t seem to be in any real trouble, Fake Steve is running a campaign to Free El Jobso from the tyranny of the SEC. The first organized show of support is going down at WWDC, 2007, the week of June 11th. Just buy a FREE STEVE T-shirt, with or without an image of the fearless leader on front, and wear it to Macca. (Get it? That’s “Mecca” mixed with “Mac”…haha?) Unfortunately, no black turtleneck version. More »
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