CrunchGear

CrunchGear

Link to CrunchGear

The new WinPho7 promo: Doot dee doot

Posted: 18 Mar 2010 05:26 AM PDT

From: The Windows Phone 7 Team To: The Windows Phone 7 Advertising Gnomes After months of deliberation, we hereby present the master plan for all modern mobile commercials. To acquire: Rights to Feist instrumental break Cute woman with curly hair (personable) Handsome, rugged man in vaguely military but alternative shirt Record shop (build) Shot-for-shot outdoor location list for all McDonald's commercials


Barnes & Noble CEO Steps Down, BN.com President William Lynch Takes Over

Posted: 18 Mar 2010 05:08 AM PDT

Steve Riggio has signed off as CEO of bookseller Barnes & Noble to become the company's Vice Chairman. Replacing him at the helm will be William Lynch, who has heaps of experience in e-commerce under his belt and was previously President of B&N's main website (bn.com). The company also announced the promotion of COO Mitchell Klipper to chief executive of the company's retail group, which encompasses the Barnes & Noble retail business and the Barnes & Noble College Booksellers business.


Chaos Rings: Square Enix releases fantastic trailer for iPhone-exclusive RPG

Posted: 18 Mar 2010 02:40 AM PDT

Japanese video gaming powerhouse Square Enix has released a handful of hit titles for the iPhone already (including Final Fantasy I and II), but the next one, an RPG named Chaos Rings, is poised to blow them all out of the water. Officially announced [JP] today, the game’s trailer shows absolutely amazing graphics.

There will be five scenarios in the game, a turn-based battle system, boss fights, and “five 2-person teams that enter into a battle tournament to the death” (the game’s main storyline revolves around said tournament). Square Enix says Chaos Rings will be an original iPhone title with optimized touch controls. And it seems to have the best graphics seen on the iPhone so far.

The company released the trailer for Chaos Rings just a few hours ago. It’s in Japanese, but that doesn’t matter too much in this case. Expect the title to hit the App Store “soon”, at the very least within this year (judging from the trailer, the game could be pretty much finished).

Here it is:

Via andriasang

The first perpetual mechanical timepiece: Cabestan Sol Invictus

Posted: 18 Mar 2010 12:00 AM PDT

Even discounting the fact that this is a watch, this is just an amazing little piece of machinery. The Sol Invictus puts a modern spin on the perpetual motion machine, using micro-motors, solar cells, and a chain system to create an incredibly complicated (and incredibly cool looking) timepiece. The is the first watch to combine a chain & fusée with drums and vertical tourbillon in a watch, and the result is stunning.


Mod: Audio line out from SNES Super Gameboy

Posted: 17 Mar 2010 08:50 PM PDT

Chiptune is fun to mess around with, but programming on a tiny Gameboy screen can get a little annoying. Nintendo created the Super Gameboy to allow players to plug Gameboy cartridges into their SNES, so it would stand to reason that you could run LSDJ or Nanoloop through your TV. But how to get the audio out and recordable? Kyle Robinson has a nifty little Instructable on how to add an 1/8″ audio jack to the cartridge. Only basic soldering ability required.

[Instructables via Make: Online]

You wish you had this dude’s MS Paint skills

Posted: 17 Mar 2010 08:30 PM PDT

Yahtzee takes on Heavy Rain

Posted: 17 Mar 2010 08:00 PM PDT


The latest entry in the games-as-art argument, Heavy Rain is the spiritual secret to the controversial Indigo Prophecy, one of the rare “interactive storytelling” type games that has made a dent on the market since Phantasmagoria. Personally, I think I would enjoy the game, but since I don’t have a PS3, that’s not going to happen any time soon. Yahtzee is of two minds about it, understandably, calling it various names but admitting it gets much better later. Anyone check it out yet?

Water runs uphill in mysterious silicon etching

Posted: 17 Mar 2010 07:00 PM PDT


Bet you weren’t expecting that headline tonight, were you? Well, it’s about as literal as I could get. Some enterprising boffins at the University of Rochester used a high-powered laser to etch microscopic patterns in silicon such that water overcomes its own hydrophilia and goes in whatever direction they please. This is very much still a laboratory discovery, but a few years down the road, you might see this kind of thing built into chips as a sort of hybrid active-passive cooling solution.

The issue I see with it is this, though: the water is drawn to the pattern on the silicon, right? More so than to itself. So once it reaches the silicon, what will pull it away? It seems like water would simply coat the silicon in a single-molecule layer, and then the rest of the water would roll downhill as normal. But hey, who the hell am I?

Xbox 360 Slim on the way?

Posted: 17 Mar 2010 06:40 PM PDT


Some rumors are swirling regarding a possible “slim” version of the Xbox 360. And why not? The console being sold is largely the same as one they were selling… wow, is it more than four years ago now? Of course, the ones they sell now run a little cooler, and don’t have an enormous failure rate, so there’s that. And with the pressure on from the PS3 Slim and… well, a black version of the Wii, Microsoft probably wants to be one of the cool kids with the console revisions.

The pictures are purportedly of the new motherboard, and show a combined processor and graphics unit, a generally smaller size, and a SATA connector instead of a proprietary one, suggesting the new hard drive will be internal.

[via Kotaku]

Metroid Other M: No Nunchuk, No Cry

Posted: 17 Mar 2010 06:20 PM PDT


When Nintendo first unveiled Metroid Prime, fans were skeptical (if not downright apeshit). For a 2D adventure game based on exploration, how could it possibly work in first person? Long story short, Metroid Prime was pretty much universally loved upon release, and now that the Metroid Prime trilogy has gone on to become something of a classic series, all is forgiven. And when Nintendo announced that it had handed off development of the latest Metroid game, Metroid: Other M to Team Ninja, many fans were, once again, walking around with clenched fists. But it was working so well in first person! And early videos showed the game looking much more action oriented. And Samus actually talks in the game. Why would Nintendo let this happen! Thankfully, things have calmed down since Nintendo has shown off more of the game, and the Other M’s 2D to 3D gameplay, along with a weird-yet-interesting NES/pointer control scheme — sans Nunchuk — seems to be whetting appetites something fierce. (Mine, anyway.)

In a talk with IGN, Metroid producer Yoshio Sakamoto talked more about the NES style control and lack of Nunchuk integration, saying that “…with the team I’ve been working with, we’ve been making the Metroid series in 2D up to this point. Even though we’ve been looking for a way to control Samus in 3D, we wanted to achieve the feeling that you had when Samus was in 2D. We decided that the traditional D-pad for movement plus jumping and shooting on buttons was the most appropriate control scheme for this direction. The second reason, and let me preface this by saying I don’t think bad games use the nunchuk because there are a lot of great games that do, there’s a certain image created with the nunchuk, it’s a bit of a barrier in accessibility because it’s a “different” control. The nunchuk I think is more appropriate for core audiences. At the same time, I feel that showing people a 3D game where you can control it using the remote really does stir the imagination, they’ll think “How’s it possible to control the character using the sideways remote in 3D?” I also think it’s attractive to those who grew up playing games using this kind of control.”

In some ways, this does seem like the logical evolution of the series: blending its 2D roots with some of the innovations of the Prime saga. Hopefully, they can pull it off. But I have one request: Please, Metroid Other M, tell me mid-game if I haven’t done or explored enough to get a good ending. I can’t invest another 20 hours in a Metroid game just to see the back of Samus for 0.37 seconds and then watch the credits roll.

“Bloom” light shows what’s possible with 3D-printed decor

Posted: 17 Mar 2010 05:30 PM PDT


Doesn’t this look like something you’d see in an alien’s house? It is in fact real, and is a lamp design by Patrick Jouin for MGX, a group that does lighting via 3D printing techniques. We’ve posted a few times about Shapeways, which does fabrication of submitted 3D models, but these are designer.

I think it really does open up like that, but I can’t imagine the tiny mechanisms involved. I’d love to have one of these as a variable light source in my living room.

[via Mocoloco]

Don’t Call Tech Support. Try Orkin Instead!

Posted: 17 Mar 2010 05:18 PM PDT

Someone passed this post along to us, and since our Chinese is limited here in CrunchGear-land, I’m afraid we can’t vouch for it. The video contained may, in truth, provide the recipe for a lovely London broil for all we know, so take it with several healthy grains of salt. But at least the basic premise is amusing.

It seems that HP in China received a number of complaints about their wares. And, in an effort to spread out the responsibility, someone decided to point out that a computer user’s environment can impact the performance of the machine. Since the local authorities had to come in and remove the 49 cats from our 350-foot studio apartment, the fan on our computer have been running much more effectively. So there is undoubtedly some truth to the environmental factors argument.

But we never thought they’d blame cockroaches.

Somewhere, a lazy comedian just made a joke about software bugs.

Generation I: Middle Children of the Information Age

Posted: 17 Mar 2010 04:00 PM PDT



Every generation thinks that they are the first. The first to feel this way or that, the first to make this or that revelation, the first to do and make things that we find later have been done and made since before we could record their doing and making. But while these illusory and fleeting firsts are common to every generation, there are true firsts being achieved constantly, though they are often subtle enough that they are not noticed even by those in their midst. My generation has been lucky enough to be part of a very important first.

The personal computer (in all its forms) has grown to be, I would say, the single greatest potential source of prosperity in history. It has enabled the internet and a consequent democratization of all sorts of arts and information, as well as the ongoing destabilization of financial institutions via distributed money transfers. The revolution, and it really is one, is ongoing. How unlike the world of 2000, of 1990, is the present day? And 2020 will be doubly, triply removed. As technology further enables itself, the positive feedback creates a greater rate of advance, and thus our acceleration; if this interests you, you should probably go talk to Mr. Kurzweil, since he’s done a bit more work on the idea. I’m not concerned with the singularity, however: my object is the generation to which I belong. I propose that this generation, which I am going to call Generation I for a number of reasons, is the only one to which the rate of advancement of technology was exactly fitted. At no other time in history, and perhaps never in the future, will there be a group of people whose own growth and maturation is so perfectly reflected in the principal technological and cultural advancement of the age.

It’s a serious claim, but I hope to show that it’s founded in observation and not egomania. And let me remark further before I begin, that I am not claiming any special merit for this generation, only a special situation. Lastly: I will speak of “advancement” or “progress” as if they were objectively measurable, when clearly there is much to be said on what those concepts actually consist of. But for the purposes of this article, let us consider them to be, say, the progressively sophisticated bending of the natural world to our needs and wants.

As even a casual student of history (read: a grade-schooler) can see, the rate of technological and cultural advancement has ever accelerated, of course with some interruptions due to warfare and subjugation. This is first observable in the length of “ages” — the stone age, 40,000 years. The bronze age, 2000 years. The iron age, 1000 years. There are too many books written on this topic for me to spend many words on this, and at any rate this acceleration is palpable to those of us living in the modern first world. Moore’s Law was once a simple prediction; now it’s practically a force of nature.

Let us look at recent history, to prime our minds for the idea of what I would call a “generational technology.” The car is a perfect example. Prototyped in the late 19th century, manufactured widely in 1915, increasingly affordable and common over the next 30 years, then producing a “car culture” in the 50s and 60s, followed by an increasingly consumerized nature as the automobile was integrated completely into civilization, and cities and lives began to be designed around it. Today the integration is complete, and perhaps we are on the verge of another change, to a post-car world. I don’t know. But the divisions in the car’s history, you see, are a lot like generational periods. The specific dates and years aren’t important, as generations are a sort of rolling concept, and the lines are wherever the historian finds them convenient to be. So let us look at the stages of the car, which I have also given names (I’m a coining machine today):


Hammer stage: During this time, the concept and platform of the automobile were being determined by the founders and inventors. Things like setting down how many wheels a car will have, which method of propulsion it will use, the materials it will be built from, and so on. There was surely some bickering here, as there was between AC and DC when prototyping electrical devices, but one fundamental form is almost always selected, and for the car it was four wheels, front engine, and internal combustion. This stage is performed entirely by an older generation of inventors, investors, and engineers.


Paper stage: This is the period where the creators turned the design over to the marketers, who made it into a product. Extra features were created within the confines of the pre-established framework, manufacturing methods were improved, the whole process made faster, and other steps taken to make the technology affordable and attractive. For the car this was of course improvement in reliability, luxury, and speed, among other things. It is a stage of intense competition among marketers, who must both inform and sell to the public, to whom the idea of the car (in, say, 1925-1940) is still new and barely affordable. They are largely ignorant on the subject and are likely skeptical.


Tinker stage: Once the car was adopted by consumers at large, as cars were by the close of World War II, the next (very numerous) generation grew up with the “new” technology taken — I don’t want to say for granted but perhaps as granted. The car culture of the 50s and 60s was a result of a generation of people in tune with an important and exciting technology, a generation as familiar with the car as they were with the clock. There was an expansion of the purposes of the car during this time, as well as a great improvement in their quality, since this generation, having grown up with cars, would work to provide the advancements that were not possible under the auspices of either their parents or the inventors, whose ideas were likely no longer applicable. This positive feedback loop, as in other technologies, leads to a second push and prepares the way for the fourth stage.


Mirror stage: Once the car had been proposed, adopted, and grown up alongside of, in the three previous ages respectively, it was ready to become fully integrated. Not just because it had gotten to a certain level of affordability or reliability, but because it was an integral part of the modern person’s life already, and now the task was to shape civilization around it. While the highway creation act in 1956 obviously wasn’t driven by 10-year-old baby boomers, the obligation of government and industry to acknowledge the growing importance of the automobile was clear enough once it was recognized at large as foundational. In this stage nearly everyone is part of the process; the automobile has impressed itself on civilization, and civilization must now reflect it more fundamentally. The term Mirror Stage is actually an existing psychological one (as well as an excellent game), and refers to the period at which a child becomes captivated with its own image. I thought it loosely appropriate.

Essentially: invention, introduction, internalization, integration.

But is there another stage? I don’t think so. The cycle is complete: the changing world births a new technology, the technology is popularized, refined, and eventually fuels the next change. I chose the car as a representative because it is familiar and its effects clear, but with a little work I think that the model I’ve just suggested can be applied to pretty much any technology, from aqueducts to longbows. But this isn’t a longbow blog — so let’s move on.

Note that, in the example of the car, each stage is relegated roughly to a generation. The inventing generation sells to the adopting generation, which brings up the integrative generation. Furthermore, the inventing generation cannot be the adopting generation, and the rate of progression in this case prohibited the adopting generation from being the integrative generation; for the car it took around 50 or 60 years, arguably more, for it to reach its Mirror stage. My belief is that Generation I (born roughly between 1975 and 1985) is the first generation, and possibly the last, to see and be a part of every stage: to be a part of the genesis, popularization, refinement, and counter-refinement of their age’s defining technology.

Now, I don’t claim we invented the personal computer; nor, I’m sure, would those who are cited as inventing the computer. Like the automobile, the computer was a long time coming and was enabled by advances in many other technologies and disciplines. Early computing was as an exercise in logic, mathematics, and electrical engineering, and its early advances academic. What defined the automobile, and what has defined both the computer and the age in which it has proliferated, was not in fact the creators (brilliant though they were), who were the implements of history, but the people who used them and guided their use. For the car, that definition was stretched out over long decades, and people grew old while automobile technology remained young. For the personal computer and the internet, the infancy of the technology coincided with the infancy of my generation, its adolescence with our adolescence, its growth with our growth, in such a pas-de-deux as has no precedent in history and, for all we know, may have no equal in futurity.

Generation I is the middle child of the information age. To be born a few years earlier would mean to see the personal computer and the internet as an new and exciting gadget, like the VCR or Walkman. A few years later would be to arrive late to the show: to grow up in the presence of computers, smartphones, and the internet, but not to grow up with them. Taken for granted, these things become black boxes; on the other hand, seen as just another set of devices and applications, they lose their transformational potential. I think the timing is very important, but of course as part of the generation, I am prone to that error.

Our readers will probably remember that computers around 1980 were ugly, limited, and expensive machines. They performed a few of the functions will still value today (word processing, calculating, games) but had no GUI and little connectivity. I don’t want to overstate the parallels, but just for clarity in what I am driving at, consider that an apt comparison might be to a young child, able to see and crawl, or walk totteringly — fundamentally intact, you see, but encumbered with limitations that can only be changed with time and effort.

I remember learning just enough of my dad’s old work computer to find tic-tac-toe and play it on the flickering amber screen. A few years later, primitive UIs are emerging, so primitive that the command line is still unarguably the more powerful tool. Just as Generation I begins to learn to read and to speak, the PC can be communicated to in what we understood as plain language. The first truly popular computers proliferate, running DOS, and a few of us were lucky enough to play with one of the later Apple II models.

In 1990 the GUI and the more complex tools it enables begin to flourish and become fundamental to the PC experience, as Windows 3.0 and the Mac Classic hit the market. Shortly after that, the first affordable modems. BBSes, AOL and its chatrooms and fake internet, and then the revelation of the true web with Mosaic, Internet Explorer, and so on. I won’t waste your time with further details you’re almost certainly familiar with (having lived through them), but you must see the way things are not moving at the rate of a stage per generation like the car. No – they moved more quickly, but not so quick that we lost track. This particular speed of maturation (from “infancy” to “adulthood,” which we may define as, say, Windows XP or OS X; after that I believe the core functionality of the PC OS has not been substantially altered), which is roughly the same as the speed of maturation for a human being, and Generation I has the privilege of being the computer’s twin sibling, if you will.

Though the virtue of being born at the right time is not ours to claim, nor is it simply a novelty that Generation I has grown up in tandem with a world-defining technology. As we grew up with it, we have seen and participated in all the stages of generational technology. We witnessed as children the squabbling between Atari, Microsoft, Amiga, and all the others as the beat the raw metal of computing technology into a shape the world could use. We knew it when it was young, and then we helped it become a household technology by simply being in the household, the way baby boomer kids grew up around cars and ended up knowing cars better than any generation before them. However, cars as a technology practically stood still for the car kids’ formative stages. Not so for us: every year the computer was changing its case, its OS, its capabilities, its interface — everything changed about it, but we still recognized it, the way we’d recognize an old playmate year after year who, though changing in size, aspect, and ability, we still know. That is how Generation I knows the computer, the internet, the smartphone, and whatever comes next. Not as a series of devices, but as the natural progression of a friend whom we know by sight in spite of the changes wrought by time and culture. Perhaps it is best expressed that we know the ghost in the machine, that which has informed and guided the progression of the technology from household appliance to a tool as fundamental as the wheel.

Captain Nemo took pride in the Nautilus “moving through a medium of movement.” He meant the ocean, of course, a place that is never the same one instant to the next, but which he nonetheless knew and navigated freely because… well, because he had a submarine. The metaphor doesn’t extend that far. But the idea of moving in a moving medium is a powerful one. To truly understand the way that the world changes around you, and to not only be able to survive in it but to thrive, to navigate, to direct that change, that is the privilege of a generation born into movement.

I see in my flight of fancy I’ve really built up Generation I into quite a ridiculously grand thing, and in doing so made the same mistake that I described in the first sentence of this article. I did not mean to do so, but the simple boon of being born alongside a world-changing technology is not minor: it matured with us and has shaped us as much as we have shaped it, and that means that we are on the front line for the Mirror Stage of the information age. Can you forgive me for being excited to be a part of a sea change in civilization, a change in infrastructure perhaps more fundamental than the integration of the automobile? Few events in history are the equal of this impending shift, if I’m not mistaken. I of course don’t claim it for myself or my generation; it is a glory we will share in, but which we may be able to uniquely enjoy. Imagine being the childhood friend of the first man to set foot on Mars. It’s no credit on yourself exactly, but you just may understand him more fundamentally than anybody else.

What’s that I hear you saying? That we haven’t actually contributed much to the progress of the personal computer and the internet? Very true! If I’ve claimed otherwise I’m very sorry, because Generation I, like the baby boomer generation in the 60s, isn’t quite ready to make our mark. The fact is we’re just starting out. What was the work of the baby boomers? Was it driving cars around fast and knowing how to clean a carburetor? Hell no. Their task wasn’t just to know the technology that would shape their world, but to shape their world. And that’s our job as well. What changes the world will know in the next 20 years are impossible to predict, but you better believe that Generation I are going to set their shoulders to it. The Mirror Stage awaits.

And why Generation I? Before us is Generation X, or so we are told. I’ve heard people my age, or my brother’s, as Generation Y. It’s no use naming a generation before their purpose is clear; otherwise the Greatest Generation would be called the Kaiser Kids or something horribly inappropriate. Generation I occurred to me as I was writing this piece, and as far as I can tell it’s the most evocative of that which truly defines us.

Generation I reflects the burst of technology which in the last decade (as we ourselves have made our real-world debut), has become commonplace, and the prefix “i-” has become a universal indicator of tech. Yes, it’s a bit of a capitulation to Apple, but let’s not fool ourselves: the iPod and iMac immediately became so synonymous with personal technology that i- became generic almost overnight. So we’ve got Generation i. To be honest, I’m not sure if I prefer i or I. I think that, like other instances of the letter, capitalization may vary.

Generation I is also Generation Me: the increasing independence and compartmentalization of the social order that is the result of the personal computer and the internet, our totem technologies. It’s the paradox of instant connection and constant isolation.

And Generation I is Generation One. This is the most important of all. The coincidence of timing that resulted in us being born with silicon in our mouths also charges us with a serious responsibility — though what it may be is yet unknown. No generation is warned of the tribulations ahead, though with luck our task will be suited to our unique position. But why the One? If, as I suspect, we are in fact the first wave of a new, tech-integrative sort of people, then surely the kids born after us, into a world already possessing high-speed internet, Wikipedia, and GPS smartphones, are Generation II. What better than to start giving version numbers to our offspring? Seems like something Generation I would do.

I’d like to conclude with an apology. If you’ve read this far, there’s a good chance you’re seething with anger at having been excluded from what I seem to think is the most awesome generation of all time, who invented everything worthwhile and will do everything important in the future. I want to correct that potential misconception, though I understand where it’s coming from. Obviously the pioneers of the information age are largely baby boomers, and of course Generation X is one of the great utilizers of technology. And for that matter, kids today fulfill many of the conditions that I think make Generation I so special. I can only say that I tend to get carried away, and that our special situation is really the main thing we have going for us. Am I reaching? Very likely. Am I romanticizing? Most certainly. Let’s chalk it up to youthful vigor.

It is probably true that every distinct generation is born into a confluence of circumstances that is consequential in its own way. Too often, though, I have felt that people my age have been maligned as a passive generation, one of consumption and luxury. That’s actually true as far as it goes, but there is much beneath the surface; who would have thought that the boomers, flower children and hot-rodders in the 60s, would be galvanized by the civil rights movement and Vietnam, emerging to become the most powerful demographic in the country, and perhaps the world, for decades running? It is toward such heights that Generation I must drive itself. We must show ourselves equal to the special favor we have been granted, and do our part to carry the world into the next age, whatever it asks of us.

Note: if you comment about how this article was too long for you to read, your comment will be deleted. Who cares?

The Playstation Move makes its advertising debut

Posted: 17 Mar 2010 03:55 PM PDT

Video: EA Sports MMA trailer (but where’s Fedor?)

Posted: 17 Mar 2010 03:30 PM PDT

Man, two new trailers in the same day. Our cup runneth over, and so forth! Anyhow, here’s the newest trailer of EA Sports MMA, which should hit stores "late 2010." That’s all in-game footage, too, so no smoke and mirrors nonsense.

Featured prominently are Bobby Lashely, Brett Rogers,Cune Le, and Nick Diaz (!). Where’s Fedor? You’d think he’d be one of the main guys in the trailer. Hmm…

Considering I much prefer a proper ring, à la PRIDE or DREAM, to a cage, well, I’m happy to see proper rings make an appearance. Remember: EA Sports MMA will feature Strikeforce as its main promotion, which is a pretty big deal for Scott Coker & Co. Nothing wrong with having a giant like EA in your corner.


Nice knowing you, AdBlock, but it’s time to move on

Posted: 17 Mar 2010 03:00 PM PDT

Today’s a very important day in the history of me using the Internet, a history that began in late 1996. Ladies and gentleman, I have completely uninstalled AdBlock. I do believe that makes me a man in the Jewish faith, so I’ll be expecting presents from all of you.

Like many of you, I first installed AdBlock several years ago, back when the Internet was still reasonably untamed. Pop-ups were the main concern—before I switched to Firefox (well, its progenitor, Phoenix), I’d launch Internet Explorer and find myself besieged with all sorts of absolute nonsense—but then other types of ads started becoming intrusive. Like, they were ruining the entire Internet experience. In steps AdBlock, and bam! The Internet is clean again—I can actually read my favorite Web sites!

That was the status quo for a while there, and I’m pretty sure it mirrors many of your experiences. But then sites started to integrate ads into their layout—clever move, gentlemen! Blocking said ads would, instead of making the Internet shiny and pretty, render them completely unreadable.

Then there’s the moral issue. Many, if not all, of the sites you read and love (?) are totally free because the sites can turn to Big Company and say, “See? We have X-Amount of readers, and if you’d like to advertise to these people we’ll happily hand over a couple pixels of space for a banner ad or two.” Web sites are cheap-ish to run, but they’re not free, as Ars Technica far more eloquently put it the other day. When you use AdBlock and the like, you’re taking away from the site’s ability to sell adspace to advertisers. Considering nobodywants to pay for things anymore, much less online news…

I’m not going to say something terribly dramatic like, “OMG you’re taking food off their table~!” but it does make their lives a little bit harder. And that’s energy that could be put toward making a better site rather than worrying about why all the ad revenue has dried up.

I suppose I could have merely chosen to disable it on a per site basis, but I feel more adult this way.

See you later, AdBlock. You served me well, but it’s time we go our separate ways.


Incandescent bulb production left in the dark

Posted: 17 Mar 2010 02:30 PM PDT

Call Greenpeace, they’ll want to hear this. Today marked the end of 120 years of mass-produced incandescent bulbs for Toshiba. They had planned to stop manufacturing a year from now, but seems the timetable got moved up in favor of those more efficient LED bulbs. High fives all around people.

Believe it or not, but Toshiba has a proud and rich history when it comes to making incandescent bulbs. Way back in 1890 when their daughter company Hakunetsu-sha was the first to do so at 10 bulbs a day. The peak came in 1973 with 78 million bulbs for the year.

Regulations all around the world are starting to tighten, meaning we should see incandescent bulb production come to end within a few years. Yay the environment!

[PCWorld]

Consumer Reports plays with the latest 3D TVs

Posted: 17 Mar 2010 02:00 PM PDT

If there’s new TVs or coffee makers, Consumer Reports will test them out. That’s the case with the new Samsung and Panasonic 3D TVs and the company just posted a early hands-on look that actually reveals some differences. It’s totally worth your time even if you don’t plan on jumping on the 3D bandwagon this early on.

Review: Plextor 128GB SSD

Posted: 17 Mar 2010 01:31 PM PDT

All the cool kids are playing SSDs these days. So much so that every manufacturer wants of piece of the sweet cherry pie. Even Plextor who was previously known as an optical drive/media company has a set of 64GB and 128GB SSDs available now. Too bad these options tastes more like a supermart-made pie than your grandma’s home cooking.

Features:

  • 128GB capacity
  • 64MB on-board cache
  • SATA II interface
  • MSRP of $399

Pros

  • It’s an SSD so it’s quiet and rugged

Cons

  • Slower than other drives at same price point
  • No TRIM support

Review:

SSDs are all about speed. That’s all that really matters so I’ll cut to the chase. This drive is fast, where fast means it’s quicker than standard spinning disk hard drives. And it should be since it’s a SSD hard drive. But it’s also slow as it has noticably slower read/write speeds verses other SSDs in the same price range.

This is important. Only a niche group of computer enthusiasts are willing to drop $400 on a 128GB SSD hard drive. It’s crazy expensive when 1TB desktop drives can be had for around $70. Obviously these people are willing to spend good cash for speed.

But this first generation Plextor simply cannot stand up to late generation drives from Corsair, Crucial, or OCZ. I tested the SSD using HD Tune Pro 4.01 and it’s slower than even the year-old OCZ Vertex 120GB model.

The advice here is to pay attention to your SSD purchase. There are a ton of different options available now and not all of them are worth your money — like this Plextor drive. But that’s just because of its high price. It’s a fine drive and I would have no qualms about having it in my computer, but it needs to be priced at least a $100 less.

Product Page

Casio VL-10 synth is miniscule

Posted: 17 Mar 2010 01:15 PM PDT

Synthesizers? Calculators? In the same device?! If your first thought was, “I want one”, then today is your lucky day. The little brother of Casio’s VL-Tone synth, the VL-10, was spotted on eBay with 7 hours left to go. 29 buttons, 5 different sounds, and 10 drum rhythms can all be yours if you hurry.

Video after the jump.

[eBay via MatrixSynth and RetroThing]
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)