The FCC has come through again, giving up testing info on Sony’s upcoming PSP-3001 redesign. It’s still the same generation PSP and still has most of the same parts (802.11b Wi-Fi) and still plays the same games, so we’re guessing most of the changes will be internal and focused on lowering costs and making the thing harder to hack. Why do we think that? Because that’s exactly what Jack Tretton of SCEA said in the roundtable at E3, that Sony’s working on securing the platform from piracy. We’ll just have to wait and see whether it’s worth upgrading to this version if you’ve already got a PSP. [FCC]
In the remote town of Paraburdoo in Western Australia, life is tough. The orange dirt gets in your hair, you’re miles away from the nearest town and your streets apparently have walls of tyres blocking the way.
Or – in a hypothetical place a lot closer to reality – the town is so tough that it gave the Google StreetView car that was photographing its streets a flat tyre. Funnily though, the camera decided to document the experience of getting its tyre replaced, including photographing the workshop that it pulled into for a quick repair job.
While we fully expect the images to be pulled down and some outlets of the media (and privacy groups) jump on this as a gross invasion of privacy into the tyre repairman’s workshop, I say we should go out of our way to congratulate the workman for helping a StreetView driver in need.
So if you ever happen to be driving through the small town of Paraburdoo in WA, make sure you swing by to get your tyres checked – let’s use this as a chance to grow a man’s business in a small, outback Australian town.
[Streetview - Thanks Dale!]
Start saving your gold coin change, because at $429 the Asus Eee Box is as cheap as desktops PCs are likely to come in Australia.
People looking for a powerhouse: look elsewhere – this is cheap and nasty, running Windows XP on a 1.6Ghz Atom processor, with 1GB of memory and an 80GB hard drive. It’s got 802.11n built-in, along with 2 USB and a memory card reader (SD, SDHC, MMC, Memory Stick).
As you can see from the image above, it’s available in a range of colours, although in Australia, we have the better option of only getting black units. Nobody likes individuality anyway.
It’s not perfect, obviously - there’s no optical drive – but if you have an old monitor lying around somewhere, you could use this as a backup PC for email or web browsing.
[Asus]
Not sure when this happened, but considering Apple launched movie downloads on iTunes this morning it’s probably a recent decision… Apple TV has finally gotten a much-needed price drop in Australia.
The 40GB model, which used to retail for $449, now costs $329, while the 160GB model drops from $579 to $449.
That’s still a fairly big markup on the US$229 and US$329 prices in the States, but still, it makes the Apple TV a much more attractive option. It also makes it the only attractive option in Australia for VOD direct to your TV (outside of Foxtel’s On Demand).
Now that it has some practical uses here thanks to the ability to buy/rent movies or buy TV shows online from the comfort of your loungeroom, are any of you guys going to go and make the purchase? Or are you holding out for a Netflix-like Roku box?
[Apple - Thanks Alex!]
As a general rule, the weird and wonderful gadgets that always seem to come out in Japan never actually make it to Australian shores. But Sony has surprised us by announcing that they’re planning on releasing the PFR-V1 headphones (although technically they’re not headphones, it’s just easier to write headphones as opposed to “Personal Field Speakers” every time) we saw back in February.
When you’re born blind, there are a few things you probably don’t expect to do: become an airline pilot, use a camera and type on the iPhone, to name a few. Chueh Lee, a designer at Samsung in China wants to remedy that second one with his Touch Sight camera design, which instantly creates a Braille-like relief image on a dynamic Braille display to be felt, saved and even traded with other Touch Sight users. In addition, the camera records three seconds of sound after the image is taken, which helps impaired-vision users navigate through libraries of saved pictures.
We knew it was coming. Now as of this morning, it’s official – you can download movies from the iTunes Store.
We counted 364 films on offer, ranging from classics like Terminator and Robocop to relatively new releases, like Jumper and Cloverfield, although the press release claims over 700. Prices to purchase the films look to vary between $9.99 and $24.99, which seems a little bit steep – there’s no physical disc, so it should be much cheaper than buying a DVD.
Movie rentals are also available, with library items costing $3.99 and new releases $5.99, which is a much more appealing cost. At this stage, it doesn’t look like there’s anything in HD, but that could be a choice on Apple’s part – at least until our broadband pipes expand enough to be able to handle the extra bandwidth.
If you are going to be jumping into this service, make sure you know your download limits – unless you’re with iiNet, you’ll be paying for the download twice, and as movies are all about 1GB in size, you can chew through your monthly allowance pretty quick.
[Apple - Thanks Ryan!]
Planning an expedition to the uninhabitable continent soon? Didn’t think so. But still, this biofuel-powered Concept Ice Vehicle is pretty cool, with a prop in the back and three ski feet to ride on; it even has a spiked front foot for braking action and an ice radar for navigation. galleryPost('lotusciv', 3, '');
Well, it’s not an emulator in the strictest sense of the word, but it does play the massive catalog of Infocom Z-Machine interactive text adventure games. If you’re tired of expensive, tilt-happy titles that tire out your pale, strangely thin wrists, you can now slowly piece your way through hours of exhilarating action.
Fujitsu Siemens’ latest line of LCDs will have a standby mode that draws no power, compared to the 1-6 watts of power competitors’ monitors draw in standby. According to BIOS Magazine, the technology will be included in the 20-inch P20W-5 ECO and 22-inch P22W-5 ECO, and consists of a switch in the power supply breaks when the connected PC goes idle, and powers back on when any key is pressed (essentially, your keyboard acts as the power button).
