Friday, November 9, 2007
Computers
Asus Eee Desktop Coming in 2008
8:10PM Brian Lam | Jonathan Tseng, VP of marketing at Asus, promises an Eee in 2008. Like the simple, cheap Eee Laptop, it’ll probably have the Eee linux interface and it won’t have a monitor. [Digitimes] More »
Press
Blockbuster Planning In-Store Movie Download Kiosks
7:30PM Matt Buchanan | Blockbuster really is falling back hard on its B&M outlets, so hard they’re missing half the point of digital distribution, which is not having to drive to the store to grab a movie. Part of their revival plan is to install kiosks at B&M stores where you can download movies straight to your portable media player. Awesome! Except that I have one of those at my house: a computer. I wouldn’t really call having to trudge all the way to a Blockbuster location to jack my iPod or whatever player into a big blue box to download a movie “bypassing the need for…transferring videos from a computer.” It takes the worst aspect of each form of distribution—leaving your easy chair and middling quality video that’s not easy to throw up on my TV—and combines them into one totally not ideal experience. Better idea on Blockbuster’s part: integrating MovieLink’s direct download store with the Blockbuster site and services. That’s the way digital distribution is supposed to work. If I come to your store, I expect to walk out with a piece of shiny plastic. [Electronista, Flickr] More »
Music
Acelabs S3 Touchscreen PMP Is Handy
6:40PM Matt Buchanan | Too bad these babies probably aren’t seeing our shores. Acelabs’ do-it-all S3 “Handy” PMP is leaps and bounds ahead of a lot of the generic PMPs we see coming out of Asia, with a 2.8-inch, 260k colour QVGA touchscreen, FM radio and transmitter (for jamming wirelessly in your car), voice recording, image/text viewer and support for MP3, WMA and WAV audio-wise, and a mess of video formats: MPEG-4, AVI, Real, WMV, Xvid and ASF. Storage comes via micro SD—up to 4GB—and a lithium polymer battery gives it 15 hours of music juice or 4 hours of video. No idea on price, but it does come in black, white or pink, and the paint job’s what really matters, right? More »
Games
Hint of Coming Xvid and Divx Support Slipped Into PS3 Firmware 2.00?
4:40PM Matt Buchanan | Kotaku’s editor from down under notes an interesting but totally unannounced feature following the update to the PS3’s freshly baked 2.0 firmware. Previously unsupported file formats (specifically Xvid and Divx) are not only detected by the PS3 now, but it magically has thumbnails and running times for the files. They still won’t play, so it might not mean anything, but Luke says it best: “Sony wouldn’t have increased the compatibility in there for shits and giggles. Would they?” Well, it is Sony. Who knows why they do anything anymore? Have you guys had similar revelatory experiences? [Kotaku] More »
Games
Video: New Xbox 360 Ring of Death Is Red AND Green for Holiday Cheer
4:10PM Matt Buchanan | Unfortunately this isn’t a Merry Christmas loopy-loo light show designed to inspire yuletide joy. Board speculation stakes it as a new error code for 360s stuffed with Falcon guts—whether it’s the same hardware failure deal as before but in prettier, less depressing colours or is an entirely new error is still up in the air, but when we get some confirmation we’ll let you know. [Logic Sunrise via Xbox-Scene via CrunchGear] More »
Networks
Sprint and Clearwire Nix WiMax Partnership
3:40PM Matt Buchanan | Given the shaky state of the WiMax unit of Sprint, the termination of its joint agreement with Clearwire to bring WiMax coverage to 100 million people comes as something of a surprise. The WSJ’s reporting that the “complexities of the transaction” and booting of Sprint’s CEO made it too hard for the pair to come to a final agreement. While Sprint’s not in dandy shape, this is a bigger blow to Clearwire, the smaller of the two companies, which might need a hot cash injection from WiMax-backers like Intel to stay on track. Sprint “has given no indication that it will halt its WiMax plans altogether,” but it seems more than likely we’ll see some significant alterations of their plans along the lines of cost-cutting, given that money’s not growing on cellphone towers for them right now, and $5 billion’s a hefty bill to foot to go it totally alone on an unproven venture. [WSJ] More »
Entertainment
iPod Touch 1.1.2 Firmware Kinda Out
3:16PM Brian Lam | MacRumors is reporting that the iPod Touch firmware is out for some via iTunes, and it’s main improvement is the added ability to create calendar appointments. Apple previously called this a bug, but in my opinion its more likely that Apple heard the complaints and added the functionality back. (The image shows old firmware’s calendar.)[MacRumors] More »
Phones
iPhone Firmware 1.1.2 Sorta Out
2:25PM Brian Lam | Firmware 1.1.2 is out, unofficially. The url to 1.1.2 firmware was posted in a Macrumors forum just now. Is this the US or EU firmware? I don’t know. I’m probably going to hold off on this one in case there are variations between this and the official US release tomorrow. And for the sake of my apps, I might wait a few days after that. Here are some unconfirmed changes culled from the comments at Macrumors and Engadget: •Battery charge level shown in iTunes. •Does break the jailbreakme.com installer.app hack. Looks like they patched the TIFF exploit. [Macrumors and Engadget] More »
Software
Photoshop Express Beta Coming This Year
2:09PM Adrian Covert | Adobe will roll out the beta version of its Photoshop Express online app by the end of 2007 and release the final version in 2008. [Crave] More »
Phones
