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I’m Linux, you’re Linux, we’re all Linux!

Posted: 05 Feb 2010 05:30 AM PST


I’ve been a full-time Linux user since 1999. I’ve been an advocate for Linux and Free Software for most of that time. My advocacy efforts usually stay within my social group, or at FreeGeek Columbus, though occasionally I’ll use my posts here to support the penguin. Linux, as an open source project developed by an ad-hoc group of people, often with competing agendas, has succeeded without much mainstream advertising. Microsoft had their laptop shopper commercials, and Apple has had their wildly successful “I’m a Mac” commercials, but there have been few Linux commercials. In the open source style of Linux development, now’s your chance to change that state of affairs!

The Linux Foundation is running a contest asking you, the Linux community, to “share with the public what a 30-60 second Linux-focused spot for the Super Bowl might look. … The submissions should aim to inspire people to use Linux, create conversations among the public, and convey the power and ideals of Linux.” The contest runs through April 4, 2010, and the winner will be selected by a combination of community vote and a panel of judges, including Andrew Morton, Linux kernel maintainer extraordinaire!

The winner of this year’s We Are Linux contest will get airfare and hotel for LinuxCon in Boston, plus a laptop pre-loaded with Linux.

Here’s last year’s winning video:




You can see other submissions from last year’s contest to get some ideas, or go crazy and make your own thing!

First Sony, now Panasonic swings into black and raises outlook

Posted: 05 Feb 2010 03:20 AM PST

Sony isn’t the only electronics powerhouse reporting good news from the financial front these days. Today Panasonic, which, as you will remember, recently acquired Sanyo for $4.4 billion, announced it returned to profit in its fiscal third quarter (October to December 2009), too. The company’s profit nearly quadrupled to $1.1 billion, while revenue almost stayed the same at $20.1 billion in that quarter (on a year-on-year basis).

Panasonic says they managed to cope with the decline in prices for TVs and other electric appliances by cutting costs across the whole company and seeing robust TV sales. In Japan, the government indirectly helped the company (and others) by introducing a stimulus program that included rewarding buyers of eco-friendly TVs and other appliances (currently, Panasonic is the world’s fourth-largest flat TV maker – following Samsung, LG and Sony).

For the full fiscal year (that ends March 31), Panasonic still expects a net loss of $1.6 billion but raised its operating profit outlook to $1.7 billion from the October forecast of $1.3 billion. Sanyo’s numbers aren’t included in these financials yet.

Daily Crunch: Smash Edition

Posted: 05 Feb 2010 12:00 AM PST

Yeah, this is the coolest stop-motion video ever made

Posted: 04 Feb 2010 11:48 PM PST

Just watch and enjoy the Japanese pop music.

DIY: Teflon mouse pad for optical mice

Posted: 04 Feb 2010 11:00 PM PST

Here’s a pretty easy DIY project, for someone so inclined. I’ll be honest, after checking around a bit on the price of commercial teflon mouse pads, I’m not sure why you’d want to take the time to make one. Essentially the project is this: take a teflon surface like a cookie sheet, baking pan, or skillet, and then modify it to the right size, and then finish the edges so you don’t injure yourself.

The part that I have trouble with is the price. Searching around on the web, I found teflon coated mouse pads for under $25. The price of the two burned griddle that the creator of this project purchased was $25. He then took the time to cut the metal, file it down, and then sand it to a fine polish. To me, well.. my time is worth more then satisfaction of knowing that I made my own mouse pad. If you want instructions on how to do this project, click here.

Relive the early days of gaming with this 1983 review of Frogger for Atari

Posted: 04 Feb 2010 10:24 PM PST


Oh how we love the Internet. This review of the now-classic Frogger was first published in issue number 24 of Compute! in 1983. It’s a fantastic look back to the simple times when Atari ruled the gaming world.

For those who do not frequent the arcade game rooms, a detailed description of the game follows. But first, there are a couple of options that may be set. Once the game has finished loading, you may choose between two speeds, FAST and SLOW, and whether you want the accompanying music on or off. The OPTION switch toggles the game speed between FAST and SLOW, with FAST being the initial setting. So far, the SLOW speed has been plenty hard enough for me.

The music option is controlled by the SELECT switch. By the way, this music is some of the best I’ve heard on any game so far. The music option is available only on the disk version. I also appreciate the fact that you are not required to listen to 10 to 20 seconds of music before you can start the game. You start or restart the game by pressing START. Even after the game has begun, you may still change speeds or toggle the music using the appropriate key.

Trust me, you’re gonna want click through and read the whole thing. It will bring a nostalgic smile to your face.

Corning invests heavily into China’s LCD market

Posted: 04 Feb 2010 09:10 PM PST

Corning Inc. is betting that big that LCD’s popularity will exploded over in China. It recently announced plans to build a $400 million to $700 million glass-melting plant within China under the forecast that the country will see a 70% growth in the LCD TV market. Corning probably knows what its doing, too. After all, the company is responsible for 60% of the world’s LCD glass.

China’s recent rapid growth is a golden opportunity for many companies previously not interested in the country. But the Chinese middle class is growing and buying up modern conveniences like LCD TVs. However, as the WSJ points out, the flat-panel sets still aren’t as popular in China as they are here in the States. About 90% of the TVs should stateside are LCDs where in China, it’s about 70%.

Corning Inc. isn’t the only LCD company with plans to move manufacturing within Chinese borders. The rest of the major LCD players — Samsung, LG, and Sharp — all plan on following suit shortly.

It’s commitments like this that cement LCD as the TV type of choice of years to come. It’s not like manufacturers will retool entire manufacturing lines just because a new display type like OLED or even SED claims to be better. You better like LCDs because they’re here to stay.

This arcade stick is quite large

Posted: 04 Feb 2010 08:30 PM PST


The thing about arcade games is that, although you can easily play them on your Xbox or PC with a controller or keyboard, it never feels the same as the real thing. That’s possibly because arcade games are freaking huge and have buttons the size of silver dollars. There are a few options out there for creating this effect at home, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a single-stick controller this enormous.

The HORI RAP Pro VLX even has an enormous non-slip pad so you don’t have to worry about that thing moving around while you hadoken. Not that you could move it if you wanted to, because it weighs TWELVE POUNDS.

You’ll be able to buy one for your 360 or PS3 once they’re available at Play-Asia, but they’re going to cost a cool ¥30,000, or around $330. Well, sometimes you play the games, and sometimes they play you.

[via Joystiq]

Toyota’s fixing recalled pedals with just a small metal shim

Posted: 04 Feb 2010 08:00 PM PST


Toyota just starting rolling out accelerator fixes to its dealers. The fix itself doesn’t actually seem as hard as Autoblog and Aol Autos found out at LaFontaine Toyota in Dearborn, Michigan. (Fun Fact: Ford’s HQ is in Dearborn) The process is just popping out the pedal and figuring out what size shim needs to be inserted into the recalled pedal. After that, a system diagnostic is run and the customer drives away. Hopefully the Prius’s brake software issue is just a quick fix, too.

CrunchDeal: Blu-ray player for $117.99

Posted: 04 Feb 2010 07:30 PM PST

Still waiting on picking up the Blu-ray player? I held off too until I saw one of these deals, and picked one up a few months ago. If you’ve been holding off until after the holidays, here’s your chance to pick up a decent player for a good price.

TigerDirect.com is selling an HP BD-2000 for $117.99 with free shipping. The BD-2000 is a reasonable performer, with 1080p, and DVD upconversion. It also has BD-Live, which I haven’t found to be a huge deal, but maybe it’s something that really appeals to you. The player also has an ethernet port, one HDMI port, and component outputs. It won’t do Netflix or Hulu.

You can pick the HP BD-2000 up here.

[via Dealnews]

New bill introduced to cover half the cost of 10 million home solar power systems

Posted: 04 Feb 2010 07:00 PM PST


A bill has been proposed that might help spread solar power for homes, which is still mighty expensive if you want it to do anything but run a lamp or two. The bill, proposed by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, would cover up to half the cost of up to ten million solar power system installations. Whether they’d actually hit that 10 million limit is something of a question, of course, considering solar still isn’t a bargain at half off. I mean, it’s a bargain for Mother Nature, but not for a poor blogger.

One option, of course, is for local governments to “rent” citizens’ roofs and install solar power that is fed back into the grid, in exchange for a bill reduction or tax credit. That way a city could buy a few thousand installs (and this money is being spent locally) and reduce the power burden of certain areas of the city.

Or… what-not. I don’t know, I’m not a civil engineer. But this sounds like a good idea to me.

[via Reddit]

Can whoever is writing Charter’s cable guide stop spoiling classic sports games and ruining my father-in-law’s nights?

Posted: 04 Feb 2010 07:00 PM PST


Here’s the thing, my father-in-law is a hard-working UPS driver. He defines blue-collar. After a long day driving around in a brown truck and wearing a brown jumpsuit in the freezing Michigan winter, he wants nothing more than to come home and enjoy a random sports game — sometimes live, sometimes a re-broadcast. But the damn TV guide keeps ruining the fun for him. Look at that pic and tell me what’s wrong.

The description,

Repeat, From 1996: Pittsburgh’s 20-16 win over the Colts in the AFC Championship Game. The game ended with a dramatic Hail Mary pass. (Football)

It tells who wins and the game’s final play. That’s not fun. It ruins the experience. All the discription needs to say is,

Repeat, From 1996: The Pittsburgh Steelers battle the Indianapolis Colts in the AFC Championship Game. (Football)

That’s it. Maybe they could throw in some facts quickly gathered off of Wikipedia like the quarterbacks or TV announcers, but that’s probably asking too much.

Science continues to improve our lives with new unbreakable pint glass

Posted: 04 Feb 2010 06:30 PM PST


As a homebrewing enthusiast, I’m constantly trying to improve my process and my equipment. I’m busy making a DIY bottle tree to dry my bottles right now. The British, quite probably the world’s best drinkers, have been hard at work improving the vessel of beer delivery, the pint glass. Two new shatter-proof glasses have been unveiled by the British Home Office, designed in collaboration with the Design Council.

Why bother with a shatter-proof pint glass? According to Yahoo! News “[t]here are about 87,000 alcohol-related glass attacks each year, with many resulting in hospital visits.” Holy smokes that’s a lot of beer-related violence! My biggest worry when I break a glass is how soon I can replace it, not whether or not some shard will soon make its home in my neck! “Officials swore the country would save billions in health care costs by coming up with a glass that doesn’t double as a lethal weapon.”

Always a resourceful people, the Brits were sure to highlight a secondary benefit to this new shatter-proof pint glass: “The glass could keep the beer colder for longer.”

Sláinte!

Concept bike from Peugeot looks amazing, but is it practical?

Posted: 04 Feb 2010 06:00 PM PST


The bicycle, my friends, has gone through many refinements, but not as many serious changes. Look at an average bike now, and you’ll find it’s much the same as a bike from 50 years ago. More reliable, more efficient, and much lighter to be sure, but it’s built with the same archetype in mind. Not so much with this crazy thing from Peugeot.

Of course, maybe there’s a reason we’ve stuck to the current bike design for so long. It works, for one thing. And with something like a fixed-gear or 3-gear, you’ve got a minimum of moving parts. This one is chainless, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s simpler or more elegant. It simply exchanges one mechanism for another.

At this point it’s just a concept, so there’s not a lot to get excited about, but I’d definitely like to keep an eye on alternate designs like this. Who knows when a change will come along that none of us expected, throwing the bike world for a loop?

The future, to go: Heinz reinvents the ketchup packet

Posted: 04 Feb 2010 05:33 PM PST


My entire life, the ketchup packet has remained a constant. Its saw-tooth edge and slightly bulbous form, enclosing not nearly enough ketchup, is something that, like a grand oak of food package design, you expected never to change. Well, my friends, Heinz has taken the extraordinary step of replacing a product everyone has been satisfied with for decades. And they may have actually improved it.

The new packets are explained pretty thoroughly by the diagram above. They have pinpoint accuracy and three times the payload as your garden-variety packet. They should be available at fast food joints later in the year — I imagine they have to get manufacturing scaled up to sate they’ve established as normal ketchup consumption per capita.

[via Crave]

Samsung shows off E61, the ebook reader with a bad keyboard

Posted: 04 Feb 2010 05:15 PM PST

When is a qwerty keyboard a bad idea? When it’s on the Samsung E61 e-book reader. The problem with this thing isn’t just the ugly keyboard, or the fact that it’s obviously “inspired” by the Kindle, it’s that the Samsung E6 looks promising.

The E61 has a lovely (meaning ugly) clear keyboard, but other then that it’s almost identical to the E6. It has the same 600×800 screen and removable battery, but it navigates without the sliding tray, through physical keys on the face of the unit. The folks at PC Professionale got a hands on with the new device first, and they seemed to like it. We’ve got not word on the actual release date or how much it’s going to cost yet, but it’s probably safe to assume the E61 will be out this year along with the E6.

[Via Engadget]

Where were you when the Xbox 360 version of BioShock 2 leaked? (Because it just did, you see.)

Posted: 04 Feb 2010 05:00 PM PST

Five days. We’re a whopping five days away from the game’s official release date, but BioShock 2, the second truly big game of the year (the other being Mass Effect 2) has now leaked. Well, the Xbox 360 version, that is. It’s found where these type of things can be found, and I only mention it for the sake of mentioning it. Me? I’ll wait for the Steam version, thank you very much. I may have to take Tuesday off!

Alienware to probe shoppers on QVC

Posted: 04 Feb 2010 04:00 PM PST


Get ready home shoppers, Alienware is going to be paying you a visit at 1am Eastern time on the 6th. Apparently, showing up on geeky TV shows and at Blizzcon isn’t enough, so Alienware is going to be selling it old school: on QVC late nights.

Of course, you can still buy them online, they are still going to be expensive, but this might expand the brand awareness for them. If nothing else, a whole bunch of rednecks will end up with some serious computing power.

Aliens Vs. Predator on Eyefinity – sweet lord YES

Posted: 04 Feb 2010 04:00 PM PST


Oh my gaaaaaawwwwd. Why would you play it in any other way? Are you kidding me?

One screen per claw. Take me now.

Robonauts are go!

Posted: 04 Feb 2010 03:30 PM PST


So NASA has developed these robots to basically do the work of humans. There was a previous version, which the R2 you see above (yes, “R2″) is a refinement of, and now as you can see he’s quite a performer. Is he doing a tango move there?

Check out this video. The money shot is at 3:30, where you can really see how gentle and precise the movements are.

How cool is this? It’s a joint operation with GM, since when you think about it, certain stages of car building and certain parts of space exploration are similar. Actually, I guess it’s kind of a stretch to put it like that. Really, it’s just nice for any hazardous operation in any industry to be handled by a robot with the same agility as a person.

Too bad it doesn’t have any legs, though — but at that point you’re pretty much just asking to be robo-strangled in your bed. Excellent, another addition to the Robocalypse tag. It’s been a while.

[via CNET]
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