It seems that the RIAA must really hate its customers. It’s one thing to go after people who illegally download your music, but to go after the people who purchased your music legally? What have they been smoking? According to WashingtonPost, in the ongoing case against an Arizona man, the RIAA is arguing that copying music from a legally purchased CD is illegal. And they still wonder why CD sales are still down?
So what if you want your music on your iPods, Zunes, Zens, Sansas or other DAPs? Simple. Don’t buy CDs. With services like AmazonMP3s offering DRM-free music, (iTunes only starting to offer it, same with Microsoft and Yahoo), there is no reason to buy CD ever again. Better still, only buying RIAA-free music. However, that is unlikely to happen any time soon as the lables’ grip on the industry is still pretty tight. Of course, if you want to listen to your music for free, you get your fix from services like imeem.
Update: Since the incident, the RIAA president claimed that the Sony BMG lawyer simply “misspoke” during the trial. Go here if you’re interested in hearing the interview.
Reportedly, World of Warcraft gamers are getting performance boost up to 50% simply by having WMP running in the background. Apparently, European forums started reporting last month that running WMP in the background noticeably cuts World of Warcraft load times, specifically in high-traffic sections of the game, though US gamers have just recently caught on. Some gamers even reported that it improves game latency and framerates, although these improvements are only being experienced by a handful of users at the moment. If you play WoW, why don’t you give a try and see if it works for you. Words are Blizzard is aware of the issue and currently looking into it. For once, gamers are not thrilled if this “glitch” ever get fixed.
There’s a lot of talk about Toyota and its robotic division recently, and here’s another one. This is basically old news for those in Japan, since it debuted over 2 years ago, but we just got a glimse of it here in the states, so it’s new to us. Officially called the “i-unit”, the single passenger unit is equipped with intelligent transport system technologies that allow for safe autopilot driving in specially equipped lanes. The vehicle allows the user to make tight on-the-spot turns, move upright amongst other people at low speeds and can be easily switched into a reclining position at higher speeds. Body colors can be customized to suit individual preferences and a personal recognition system offers both information and music. Hear that Segway’s owners? This thing will out-geek your expensive toy, and we can sit down, too.
The first thing I said when I saw this thing(from the yellow/green picture below) is, “holy ****, they created a protoss car”. It’s too bad that not many concept stuffs will ever be mass-produced for the public use, but this is one of the thing I want to see come to life. Even if Toyota never bring this to market, I’m hoping some modders will create a similar, static chair, before Starcraft 2 comes out next year. It would make for a sweet gaming chair.
Ok, some of you might really hear voices inside your head, but that is not what’s I’m talking about. A company called Holosonics has developed a technology it’s calling an “audio spotlight” that projects sound into your head. As if the subliminal messages advertisers (and/or goverment) have been beaming into your head through televisions and radios all these years are not enough. Of course, the company and its uses are legal at the moment, but there is nothing that will stop you from using its technology for shaddy causes.
Right now the audio spotlights are being used in NYC to promote Paranormal State, a show about ghosts and other phenomenons coming to A&E. Take a read at the source link for the complete story. If you walking home alone at night when you start to hear voices, well … let just hope you don’t have a weak heart.
Toshiba announced today that it will begin production of the Super Charge ion Batteries, or SCiBs, starting in March of 2008. So, what is the big deal with this new type of battery? The battery is capable to holding on to 90% of its charge after 3000 cycles using 5 minute quick charges, and will expected to have the life span of 10 years (5000+ cycles). It also has a very low chance of short circuiting or explosion. The bad news is that, for now, the product will only be manufactured for industrial-use (non-CE) class devices like hybrid and electric cars. Let just hope that with enough demands, we won’t have to wait long for the laptop’s, cellphone’s and other personal electronics’ versions.
Ad-supported music streaming site had finally signed a deal with the fourth and final major label, Universal Music Group, to make its entire digital catalog available for free to its members. Music from EMI, Warner Music, and Sony-BMG is already available on the music social network for awhile now. This makes imeem the first social network to have a complete library of full-length music streams from all four labels. In addition to music from independent labels, imeem now has about 5 million songs that its users can listen to, comparing to 6 million that iTunes has, but available for free. Now, the big experiment can finally begins … ad-supported vs. pay for play … what revenue generating model will win out in the end.
Fortune’s recently released (and highly subjective) list of 25 most powerful people in business named many of the tech industry people as the movers and shakers of the world. At the top of the food chain is Apple’s chairman and CEO, Steve Jobs. Not much surprises there. Many may doubt the number one position, but they surely can’t disagree with his name being in the list. Runner up is Rupert Murdoch, the media mogul, who acquired Down Jones for $5 billion, and more recently scooped up Myspace for $580 million in 2005.
Wait, is Bill Gates still in the list? Yes, he is. He’s number 7. Not bad for a guy who only work part-time now, and soon to be “retired”. Among the tech people who made the list are the Google cofounders at #4, Cisco’s CEO at 11, and HP’s CEO at 16. For the complete list, check out the source link.
Sale figures are starting to trickle in and according to online retailers PriceGrabber, Shopping.com and eBay, the Zune media players is the second most sought after items (both 30GB and 80GB versions) on BF. And the number one item? Well, it’s the Wii, of course. For the second year in the row, the Wii has been in the top of the wishlists. The success of the Zunes make it a viable alternative to the iPod. The popularity of the player is credited in part to the affordability of the 30GB, brown Zune (which can be had for $70 – $90) and its new firmware/software update.
Since BF, Zune 80 has been flying off the shelf quite quickly, sometimes only a few hours after restocked. Most of the e-retailers are having them on back ordered. Even though the 80GB Zune is at the same price as 80GB iPod Classic, the MS product’s features are more attractive to ubergeeks who read specs like a dictionary. By calling the orignal iPod “classic”, Apple seems to have shot itself in the foot. Calling anything “classic” makes it unattractive to the younger crowd, not to mention that Apple rarely had a real sale. Would you stand in line for hours to get $10 off a mouse at an Apple store, I don’t think so. The iPod line of media players will still be in consumers’ wishlists in foreseeable future, however. At the high end, the iPod touch (iTouch) muti-touch system is the media player to aim for, for those that have money to burn. Coverflow works best at this type of system. Those that simply want an iPod for the sake of owning an iPod, will likely pick up nano. Even though the 3rd gen “fatty” nano has very high pixel density, the 2nd generation ones are still the favorites for it slick designs.
Other gadgets that making headlines this year including GPS devices, Guitar Heroes III/Rockband (games & peripherals), LCD monitors, and HDTVs. For those who participate in the annual BF events, door buster items for this year are a bit lackluster, and the Cyber Monday that followed was not much special. With that said, the sale figures are up about 50% from last year, so either the economy is getting better or that the public is getting more materialistic. You be the judge.
Anyone who ever run a website knows that searching for a good, available domain name to use is a time consuming process. This is compounded by the fact that the internet is now littered with countless, contentless sites. Their only purpose is simply to display ads and/or to resell it to someone else. While this act is still legal, it has crossed the line from virtual real estate investing into more of the form cybersquatting. To put it into perspective, let’s take an example.
You have an idea for a project (or a personal website) that you need a name for. It used to be that you think up a cool name first and then you can register a domain name for it (or a similar variation of it). However, it’s almost impossible nowaday to do that. Now, the process is reversed. First you have to secure a domain name before you can do anything else because, chances are, whatever you thought up is already taken. So, you took some time to search for the name. The one you wanted … nope, taken. Hmmm, how about this variation … nope … how about this one … no go. Through the process of trials and errors, you finally come to an available domain. Ok, it’s not what I wanted … but at least it’s available. Let’s try to see what else is still available. After some more time, you came back with a list of available names that you think is do-able. Since this is a name you will be using from now on, and the one you going to tell your friends about … you thought it’s a good idea to sleep on it … think it over alittle more … before picking one from the list. So, the next day (or serveral days later), you come back to register that domain. WTH (or WTF, if you preferred) … it’s been registered! It was still available yesterday, what happened? You quickly run a registrar check on the ’whois’ for that domain. It’s registered to some random registrar … and the date registered was …WTH (again) … yesterday??? Going to the site itself, you found out that it just has a bunch of ads, and on top of it is the line … This domain is for sale.
Ok, some of you might really hear voices inside your head, but that is not what’s I’m talking about. A company called Holosonics has developed a technology it’s calling an “audio spotlight” that projects sound into your head. As if the subliminal messages advertisers (and/or goverment) have been beaming into your head through televisions and radios all these years are not enough. Of course, the company and its uses are legal at the moment, but there is nothing that will stop you from using its technology for shaddy causes.
Ad-supported music streaming site had finally signed a deal with the fourth and final major label, Universal Music Group, to make its entire digital catalog available for free to its members. Music from EMI, Warner Music, and Sony-BMG is already available on the music social network for awhile now. This makes imeem the first social network to have a complete library of full-length music streams from all four labels. In addition to music from independent labels, imeem now has about 5 million songs that its users can listen to, comparing to 6 million that iTunes has, but available for free. Now, the big experiment can finally begins … ad-supported vs. pay for play … what revenue generating model will win out in the end.
