A few weeks ago, I started to swim in the mp3 market for flash-based players looking for something small and simple as the Shuffle, but better than it. After much research, I decided that that player would be one of Sony’s new NW-E400 series walkman. The first thing one of my friends said when I told him the name of the player was, “oh but isn’t the XYOS251NLMO-204 better?”. Indeed, the name isn’t one of the player’s strong points, I know that NW stands for Network, which is the name Sony gives to all Atrac3/MP3 devices, so if you take that out of the picture, E400s sound much better, still, Read more »

Woot has the InFocus ScreenPlay 4805 DLP Projector up for $700 again today. Pretty decent price for a very nice home theater projector that can be hooked to your computer to play WoW at 120 inches. :-) Only up for today, after that the link will point to, well, whatever woot is selling that day. Read more »

Merrill Lynch Japan predicts Sony will lose more than $1 billion on hardware during its next-gen console’s first year on the market–a sum it may not be able to recoup. According to the latest issue of Japanese magazine Toyo Keizai, Merrill Lynch Japan Securities has recently calculated an analysis that the production of a single PlayStation 3 console will cost Sony approximately 54,000 yen to make ($494), as of its initial release in 2006. Merrill Lynch Japan estimates that the machine’s main components–namely its Cell chip, RSX, and BD-ROM drive–will cost about 11,000 yen ($101) each. After adding the other electronics that will be used in the PS3, the machine’s Read more »

Have you been wondering how to write a hello world program in Octave or Vatical or Snobol? On the very, very off chance that you have, you might find The Hello World Collection handy. The collection includes hello world programs in 181 languages from popular to obscure. Read more »

In an attempt to make computer animations and illustrations look more realistic, researchers at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology have developed Moxi. Moxi is a brush-and-ink style paint program that uses the model of pigment particles in water flowing onto paper. Basically, it shows the detail of paper absorbing water and pigment moving through water. The simulation is based on mathematics — the lattice Boltzmann equation to be exact. The researchers believe the work could be used practically in the next one or two years. [ via ACM TechNews ] Read more »

I just got home from seeing War of the Worlds, and if you overlook some flaws, it’s a good flick. The good: The special effects were great. The CGI was excellent. Acting was good, even if you hate Tom Cruise. The little girl from Taken (I’m too stupid to remember her name and too lazy to look it up) was really good in it. The sound was nice. I’m a big fan of loud booming noises, and this movie has lots of them. Suspense, action, drama and comedy (small doses) made the story flow well. The bad: There are some major continuity flaws in the filming. If you’re not a Read more »

Planning on hitting the beach sometime soon and want to keep up with the latest tropical developments? Maybe you live near the coast and want to know what is happening with that big storm sitting a few hundred miles offshore. The National Hurrican Center is reporting on Tropical Storm Bret via RSS. Link below goes to XML feed. Too bad they don’t put any actual information in the feed. C’mon guys, stick some coordinates and a satellite image in there. Read more »

Google has released an API for its Google Maps service. The Google Maps API lets developers embed Google Maps in their own web pages with JavaScript. You can add overlays to the map (including markers and polylines) and display shadowed “info windows” just like Google Maps. Not sure how this affects those sites that are already utilizing Google Maps by screen scraping or other means. Read more »

After someone cracks the CSS encryption on DVDs don’t you think it would be a good idea to hire the guy? Maybe after he broke the encryption on the iTunes music store? Well if someone doesn’t scoop this guy up after he cracks Google’s video viewer then they have just lost it. Instead of trying to fight these types of people they should be embracing them. Hell, if I had the money I would do it. Jon Lech Johansen, also known as DVD Jon, posted software on his “So Sue Me” Web site that he says modifies the viewer so that it plays videos hosted on any server. The company’s Read more »

One question I always seem to get from friends and family is how to convert VHS tapes to DVD. There are lots of ways you can do it, and each process has their pros and cons. Here is a site that talks about several of those methods and gives you pointers on how to get the highest quality end product. One of the easiest ways is to just plug a DV camera into your VCR and either copy the tape to a DVC tape or use it as a pass-through device to your computer via FireWire. Anyone have any tips or tricks that aren’t mentioned in this article? Read more »