Hewlett Packard is announcing that their new line of LaserJet printers is coming with an exciting new technology called “Smart Install”. This thrilling — nay, amazing! — technological development allows users to install only the print driver necessary to print from their computer to their Hewlett Packard laser printer. No more shall users be required to install all the other fluff that printers have historically foisted upon them.
Folks like you and I — that is, folks who keep up with, if not actually care about, technology developments — aren’t going to be very affected by this. We go to the manufacturer website and download just the driver. But this is really good news for people who buy printers and assume that the included CD gives them what they need, instead of a nest of running applications that provide no value to the printer owner whatsoever. I don’t know a single human being who has ever ordered replacement ink/toner, or specialty paper, or anything else from the “print solutions” suite installed by any printer manufacturer.
Hopefully other printer companies will follow suit, and soon!
Oh yeah, the new laser printers also have “Auto On” technology to compliment the existing “Auto Off” features. Now HP printers can wake up and start printing as soon as a print job is received.
New line of printers, company's first mobile scanner enable business productivity on the go
PALO ALTO, Calif., April 13, 2010 – HP today bolstered the HP LaserJet Pro printer line with a new "plug and print" technology that allows customers to begin printing in as little as two minutes by simply connecting a netbook, notebook or desktop PC to the printer with a USB cable – no CD required.
New monochrome printers featuring HP Smart Install include the HP LaserJet Pro P1100 Printer series – one of the most energy-efficient laser printers on the planet,(1) the HP LaserJet Pro M1130/M1210 Multifunction Printer (MFP) series and the HP LaserJet Pro P1566/P1606dn Printer series.
HP also unveiled the HP Scanjet Professional 1000 Mobile Scanner, the company's first portable scanner for fast, on-the-go scanning without the need for batteries or an AC adapter.
"With HP Smart Install, we're putting our innovation to work for you. Say goodbye to long driver installs and hello to easier printing," said Ron Coughlin, senior vice president, LaserJet and Enterprise Solutions, Imaging and Printing Group, HP. "Our customers demand easy printing and we're giving it to them – no clumsy CD-ROMs to install, no drivers to download. It's the future of printing, today."
HP LaserJet printers with Smart Install The new HP LaserJet Pro lineup features a sleek, black finish and delivers professional, cost-effective results while enabling small and midsize businesses (SMBs) to reduce their environmental impact.
The printers feature new HP Auto-On Technology, which intelligently senses activity – such as when a print job is sent to the printer – and awakens the device automatically from "off" mode.(2) It complements HP Auto-Off Technology, which automatically adjusts the power settings and turns the printer off when there is no print activity.
With HP Auto-On/Auto-Off Technology, the new HP LaserJet P1100 Printer series can save up to 72 percent on energy costs versus its predecessor.(3) The printers also use Original HP LaserJet print cartridges with energy-efficient toner for energy savings of up to 35 percent on every page versus earlier products.(4)
— The affordable, ultracompact HP LaserJet Pro P1100 Printer series ($129-$149),(5) features wireless functionality(6) and is the company's smallest, most affordable laser printer. Offering fast print speeds, professional print quality, an intuitive control panel and HP Auto-On/Auto-Off technology, HP LaserJet P1102 and P1102w printers help customers affordably increase efficiency.
— Ranging from $149-$199,(5) the HP LaserJet Pro M1130/M1210 MFP series is one of the lowest-priced, full-featured laser MFPs on the market. The compact MFP series includes four models and embedded Ethernet connectivity and energy-saving features such as HP Auto-On/Auto-Off Technology and HP Instant-on Copy. In addition, the series enables SMBs to copy a duplex ID onto one page with ID Copy.
— The HP LaserJet Pro P1566 Printer ($179)(5) and HP LaserJet Pro P1606dn Printer ($229)(5) offer exceptional quality, performance and value for SMBs. With fast print speeds, automatic duplexing to save paper, and embedded Ethernet connectivity,(7) these new desktop printers enable customers to enhance productivity for everyday tasks.
The HP LaserJet Pro P1102w and P1606dn Printers are available now for purchase worldwide, while the HP LaserJet Pro P1102 and P1566 Printer models are available now for purchase in Asia and Europe. The HP LaserJet Pro M1100/1200 MFP series is expected to be available for purchase worldwide next month.
In addition, the company is unveiling HP LaserJet Black Print Cartridge Dual Packs to help SMBs reduce the cost of high-volume printing. Beginning next month, dual packs for the HP LaserJet P2055 Printer series, HP LaserJet P1505 Printer series and HP LaserJet P1005/P1006 Printers will be available worldwide except in China and India, where dual packs for the HP LaserJet P1007/P1008 Printer will be available.
The Apple Store has been down for the past hour. Some are saying we should expect new Macbooks. Others expect an invasion of space people. I’m betting on the former. More as we get it.
Lots of people think hipsters ruin everything, but really, they only ruined fixed-gear bikes. Everything else is still fine: tight pants were never really cool, those big sunglasses are clearly dumb, and the hair is pretty self-condemning. But you can’t swing a cat in Seattle without hitting some joker on a fixie, even though this city is in no way fit fixed gear bikes. They’re fun to ride, but no person of sense does any more, for fear of being mistaken for a hipster. This quick-switch hub might be the solution.
Now, there are already some switcheroo hubs out there (okay, they’re not switcheroos, they’re flip-flops) but you have to get off and dechain in order to switch between fixed and free. There’s a time to get chain grease all over your hands, but in the middle of a ride is not it.
It looks like this one will let you pop between fixed and free with just a twist of the hub. You might get some grease on your fingertips there, but no one will notice. Too bad this hub costs $270!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (!!!!) though to be fair there are much more expensive bike parts out there that aren’t as cool, and these are precision parts. Order yours at Ben’s Cycle or elsewhere if you don’t like Ben.
Apparantly not satisfied with only encompassing Digidesign, Avid announced yesterday their planned acquisition of Euphonix. Makers of the System 5 series of audio consoles, converters, and a little more in my price range, control surfaces for audio and video software.
There’s nothing in the press release about continuing to offer the System 5 consoles. It rather sounds like they will be scrapped in favor of Avid’s ICON line.
Current customers, worry not. The EuCon Ethernet protocol will continue to be supported, at least for the time being. So don’t go throwing out your gear quite yet. But be forewarned:
Avid plans to further develop an open standard protocol that greatly expands the ecosystem of compatibility between the Euphonix control surfaces and a wide range of Avid and third-party audio and video applications, including Media Composer and Pro Tools.
The deal should be closed by the end of this month. These guys are moving quick.
It wasn’t long ago that we were semi-mourning the death of Psystar, distributor of non-Apple Macs. OS X running on non-Apple hardware is one of the holy grails of computing. Others have tried… but will anyone ever succeed? One company (mysterious and, it seems, Illinois-based) claims they have a tablet with netbook specs ready to be loaded with OS X. Axon Logic’s device, supposedly to cost around $500, will have better specs than the iPad, too: they plan on putting a Core 2 Duo in it before long, and it’s loaded with 3 USB ports and a webcam. I can get behind that.
I’ve seen OS X running pretty well on netbooks, but will it play nice in this touch environment? Only one way to find out, but unfortunately that way is specifically forbidden by Apple’s license. You can’t put OS X on foreign hardware and neither can anyone else. I hate it too, but it’s part of the deal. Of course, what Apple doesn’t know won’t hurt them, and if you’re content to live without updates or support, then I think Axon Logic has a tablet for you. Of course, Apple isn’t going to make it easy for them, although they seem to think that including Snow Leopard as a “DIY kit” will avoid legal issue. Hmm.
It’s supposedly coming out “in the next few months,” although the pretty rough concept shown above doesn’t bespeak a project far along in its design process. Maybe they have an awesome design and just don’t want to tell us about it. Or maybe they’re just a little company with a crazy idea that will never get off the ground. Either way, we’ll keep you posted if anything more shows up.
Maingear announced their latest today, the Quantum Shift workstation. Designed more for the content developer then the gamer, the Quantum Shift definitely brings the heat. Of course, you customize exactly how much power the Quantum Shift is packing, but it’s designed around Nvidia’s Quadro FX GPU technology.
What that means is that you can have up to 3 Nvidia Quadro FX based cards, giving you a GPU accelerated system that can pretty much take whatever you can throw at it. This workstation was conceived and designed specifically for the new Adobe Creative Suite, and allows up to 30 FPS in Premiere Pro. Expect to pay a premium for a machine this fast though, the Quantum Shift starts around $3,399, and goes up from there depending on how you want it customized.
From the press release:
Union, New Jersey – April 12, 2010 – MAINGEAR Computers, award-winning builders of custom computers for PC gamers, enthusiasts, and creative professionals, unveils the Quantum SHIFT Workstation, an everyday super computer that exceeds the demands of the most power hungry graphics professionals. Fully optimized for Adobe CS5, the SHIFT employs up to three NVIDIA Quadro FX graphics cards to enable a GPU accelerated Adobe Creative Suite that allows you to design with creative precision. SHIFT's unique vertical heat-stack design ensures that your Quadro equipment remains cool and quiet no matter how intense your tasks may be.
With Adobe CS5 powered by MAINGEAR, you can navigate images like never before with GPU-accelerated scrubby zoom, bird’s eye zoom, and 3D modeling. Also, GPU-accelerated color picker, color dropper and real time brush resizing give you immersive interaction with your canvas. The CUDA-accelerated Mercury Engine in Premiere Pro gives post-production houses the power to edit more than 3 layers and multiple effects in real-time. With Quadro's GPU acceleration in Premiere Pro, playback of two layers HDV and effects can be accelerated in real time on the GPU. At nearly 30 frames per second. Compare that to 2.2 frames per second on the CPU only.
"Adobe CS5 fully leverages the advantages of NVIDIA's Quadro FX GPU accelerated technology," said Wallace Santos, CEO and Founder of MAINGEAR. "Quantum SHIFT optimizes both technologies with enhanced performance and airflow, providing creative professionals with the most advanced workstation PC ever created."
In addition, the new GeForce GTX 480 brings an unprecedented amount of professional power to the table. If you’re looking for the ability to playback three layers of HD, and twice the performance of a GTX 285 in CS5, the SHIFT with GeForce GTX 480 is a powerhouse editing product.
“Adobe CS5 powered by GeForce GTX 480 hardware has enabled us to achieve same-day edits with our in-house video production,” said Chris Morley, CTO of MAINGEAR. “In seven years of designing and selling high definition post production workstations, I’ve never seen so much get done in so little time and for so little money. The ROI with SHIFT powered by NVIDIA running Adobe CS5 is amazing.”
I’m looking at getting a gaming notebook and am ready to drop some good cash on one, but don’t know which one to buy. High-end gaming notebooks seems to be something of a niche product now as they are only available from a few companies.
I think I’ve narrowed it down to either the Alienware M17x, Asus G72JH, or the Origin EON18. You guys play with any of these? I think I just need someone to tell me which one I should buy.
Funny you should ask, James. We’re arranging a round-up of all three of those, plus a few others right now. Stay tuned, but our commentors will no doubt lead you in the right path, too.
Have a question you would like answered by the masses? Send it to us at tips@crunchgear.com.
Lenovo has just updated its site with some encouraging words, saying that its freaky U1 hybrid tablet-laptop is “coming soon.” The news isn’t really the imminence of its arrival, but rather that it’s arriving at all. I gave it a thorough hands-on at CES, and it seemed pretty beta — but a cool idea. Maybe they’ve worked out some of the kinks?
If it still costs a thousand smackers, Lenovo is going to find that they’ve got a bit of a hard sell on their hands. The tablet portion, while svelte, was nowhere near as slick and responsive as the iPad interface, though it was an interesting interface for sure. We’ll know more soon, I’m sure.
There is much excited talk right now about Eric Schmidt letting slip that Google is indeed working on a tablet. Yeah, I think we all knew that. The only real surprise is that it’s running Android, possibly with Chrome tacked on as the browser. Why not ChromeOS? I suppose Google thinks it would be pretty ridiculous to debut a new OS with a new device, with only web apps available, when the competition will have a million-seller with 180,000 apps already available. Android is the only arrow in their quiver that can strike at iPhone right now. In fact, Google Chrome OS as a separate entity might be a smokescreen.
Stay with me, here. I mean, we can all admit that a Chrome OS tablet would be pretty limited if it really was to be just Google web apps. In the meantime they’ve got all this support for Android… but Android isn’t built for tablets. I guess if anyone can bridge the gap, it’s Google. A sort of crossover OS with access to Android apps but suitable for the larger form factor, multi-touch capabilities, and browser-centric tablet platform would be a natural step to take.
Unfortunately, it’s a bit like aping Apple there — grow your mobile OS to fit the needs of a tablet OS. The best you can come up with is a sort of melange, as Apple seems to have shown. But can they sell that melange? I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Plextor, Plextor… Seems they have a new Network Attached Story for you to consider. It’s the PX-NAS2, and it’s the company’s first NAS. Two bays in this bad boy—that means you can slip two hard drives in there, if you please.
A NAS is a NAS, yes, so there’s not too much to the PX-NAS2. You stick the hard drives in there (or get a model that includes hard drives right from the get-go), plug it into your network, and off you go. “Of you go” means you can see and share documents all over your network from the same NAS.
There’s the standard backup software (Memeo, for the record) that will automatically backup all your stuff to the NAS. She’s DLNA 1.5 certified, so there.
The plain old model, without hard drives, costs $225, one with two 500GB drives is $355, and one with two, 1TB drives will set you back $565.
MeeGo, the unification of Intel’s Moblin and Nokia’s Maemo, and shepherded by the Linux Foundation, is getting a lot of support from a variety of companies. From hardware developers to software houses, from games to automotive to embedded solutions providers, the recent announcement indicates an influx of potentially millions of developer-hours. Some of the new participants are no-brainers, while some are a bit surprising. Whether it’s an effort to hedge bets for or against Android, or just widening the market potential for their products, the end result is hopefully a better MeeGo, which is better for you and me.
MeeGo Developer Community Grows As Software Ecosystem Support Broadens
The MeeGo project receives industry-wide support while it gets down to the business of writing code
SAN FRANCISCO, April 12, 2010 – The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux, today announced that companies from a broad range of sectors have committed to and are participating in the MeeGo project. Participants today include leading device manufacturers, operating system vendors (OSVs), chipset manufacturers, independent software vendors (ISVs) and development communities. Supporting statements are attached from Acer, Amino, Asianux, Asus, BMW Group, Collabora, Ltd., CS2C, DeviceVM, EA Mobile, Gameloft, Hancom, Linpus, Maemo Community Council, Mandriva, Metasys, Miracle, MontaVista Software, Novell, PixArt, Red Flag, ST-Ericsson, Tencent, TurboLinux, VietSoftware, Wind River, WTEC, and Xandros.
This participation translates into millions of developer hours dedicated to cross-device compatibility, application portability and the user experience for MeeGo-based devices. Contributors are attracted to MeeGo because it extends reach beyond just smartphones to also include connected televisions, in-vehicle infotainment systems, netbooks and more. The MeeGo project, which merges Intel's Moblin and Nokia's Maemo Linux-based platforms, was announced earlier this year at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. An opening of the MeeGo distribution infrastructure and operating system base was made available last month, and the first release of MeeGo is expected in the second quarter of this year with applications available in both Intel's AppUp Center and Nokia's Ovi Store.
"The MeeGo project is being met with enthusiastic support from companies and developers who want to seize the market opportunity that exists for the next-generation of computing devices," said Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation. "By working with a common set of tools and open technologies for building these devices, MeeGo developers will be able to easily reach the biggest addressable market available."
As an open source software platform, MeeGo will help to reduce market fragmentation and complexity, while helping to accelerate industry innovation and time-to-market for next-generation devices, Internet-based applications, services and user experiences. MeeGo is designed for cross-device, cross-architecture computing and is built from the ground up for a new class of powerful computing devices.
Intel's Imad Sousou, co-chairman of the MeeGo Technical Steering Committee and Nokia's Ari Jaaksi, vice president of MeeGo Devices, will deliver keynotes at this week's Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit on April 14, 2010. MeeGo project meetings will also take place on days 2 (April 15, 2010) and 3 (April 16, 2010) of the Summit. For more information about the Summit program, please visit: http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/collaboration-summit/agenda
About the MeeGo Project The MeeGo project combines Intel's Moblin™ and Nokia's Maemo projects into one Linux-based, open source software platform for the next generation of computing devices. The MeeGo software platform is designed to give developers the broadest range of device segments to target for their applications, including netbooks and entry-level desktops, handheld computing and communications devices, in-vehicle infotainment devices, connected TVs, media phones and more – all using a uniform set of APIs based on Qt. For consumers, MeeGo will offer innovative application experiences that they can take from device to device. The MeeGo project is hosted by the Linux Foundation. For more information on MeeGo, visit www.meego.com.
In some ways, the list of companies pledging support for MeeGo reads more like a “who was” and less like a “who’s who”. It’s clear that at least some of these companies are glomming onto MeeGo in a bid to remain relevant as the Linux market matures.
Public Support for MeeGo Project April 12, 2010
Acer "Acer was an enthusiastic adopter of Moblin and we're excited about Moblin's evolution into the MeeGo software platform," said Jim Wong, senior corporate vice president and president of IT Products Global Operations at Acer. "We're looking forward to ecosystem innovation that will be enabled by the open nature of MeeGo."
Amino “Amino is excited to announce support and adoption of the MeeGo* software platform,” said Andrew Burke, CEO of Amino. “We are confident that MeeGo will enable and stimulate development of innovative products in the Consumer Electronics and PC industries.”
Asianux "We are excited to be joining the MeeGo Project", said Liguang Yang, Asianux CEO. "We look forward to utilizing the capabilities of MeeGo to deliver an excellent mobile experience to our customers."
Asus Corp. "MeeGo is an exciting new software platform and gives customers mobile computing solutions based on Intel® Atom™ processors which offer innovations for the user experience," said S.Y. Shian, vice president and general manager of Notebook Business Unit, Asus Corp. "As the netbook market grows, Asus is continually exploring offerings that optimize this computing experience and address the specific needs of today's netbook customers."
BMW Group "Open source innovations are necessary to drive the Automotive Industry's transition to the next generation of infotainment systems, helping bridge the gap between consumer electronics and In-Vehicle-Infotainment solutions," said Graham Smethurst – GENIVI Alliance president and general manager, Information and Communications Systems, BMW Group. "The first generation of the GENIVI reference platform is based on Moblin and the transition to MeeGo with its support of multiple architectures will make it more attractive to the industry."
Collabora, Ltd. “The MeeGo project is great news for app developers,” said Robert McQueen, director & co-founder at Collabora Ltd. “The combined strength of Moblin and Maemo makes it easy to develop apps for the platform, and allows application developers to target a broad range of mobile and consumer computing devices across the marketplace.”
CS2C “CS2C has seen great success with Moblin*-based products in netbooks and entry-level desktops in the China Go Rural program that boosts rural development with IT," said Han Naiping, CS2C CEO and president. "CS2C is very pleased to be part of the MeeGo Project."
DeviceVM “DeviceVM is excited to announce support and adoption of the MeeGo software platform,” said Mark Lee, co-founder and CEO of DeviceVM. “MeeGo will enable and stimulate development of innovative products in the Consumer Electronics and PC industries.”
EA Mobile "As the #1 worldwide publisher of mobile games, EA Mobile is excited about MeeGo and how it will help us to more efficiently and economically bring our great games to consumers," said Farshid Almassizadeh, VP Worldwide Operations, EA Mobile.
Gameloft “Gameloft always looks for platforms that bring the consumers’ gaming experience to new heights. With such a wide breadth of supporters involved, we expect MeeGo to help provide the necessary performance level for Gameloft to create games that will blow consumer expectations away,” said Michel Guillemot, chairman and CEO, Gameloft.
Hancom “Hancom is excited about the potential of MeeGo. Hancom is keen to productize with MeeGo 1.0 in Korean language and to work with local ISVs to develop compelling solutions for the Korean market,” said Youngick Kim, Hancom CEO.
Linpus "Linpus is excited to be involved in the MeeGo project," said Rita Jing, vice president of sales at Linpus. "We were involved in the Moblin™ project from very early on, shipping with several of the world’s largest OEMs. The combination of the best of the Moblin and Maemo projects to form MeeGo only creates a more powerful, flexible open source community and platform."
Maemo Community Council “The MeeGo project is a revolutionary open source initiative providing exciting opportunities for new and established developers," said Andrew Flegg, chairman, Maemo Community Council. "MeeGo is the natural evolution of Maemo. The Maemo community, active since Nokia’s 2005 introduction of the 770 Internet Tablet, is well positioned to share in the benefits of improved tooling, a wider range of devices and a larger pool of innovative ideas made possible by MeeGo.”
Metasys “Since the beginning of the Classmate PC project, Metasys and Intel have worked together on the development of an educational solution for the Linux environment, currently used in several countries. Now, Metasys becomes part of the MeeGo project and is aligning its strategy of developing the educational platform for the Classmate PC, formerly based on Moblin. Thus, the company expects to offer an innovative open software operating system for the next generation of computing devices,” said Paulo Neuenschwander Maciel, CEO of Metasys.
Miracle "Miracle is very happy to be joining the MeeGo Project and as a member of Asianux Consortium, we want to contribute an acceleration of MeeGo in Japanese market," said the president and CEO of Miracle, Takashi Kodama. "MeeGo will help allow us to provide exciting, innovative products in the embedded space."
MontaVista Software “We are excited to be an active participant in the MeeGo community. MeeGo will aid device manufacturers in bringing commercial devices to market quickly and cost effectively,” said Dan Cauchy, vice president of Marketing and Business Development, MontaVista Software. “By leveraging the benefits of MeeGo, device manufacturers will be able to deliver innovative solutions for handsets and other consumer-based embedded devices.”
Novell "Our strategic partnership with Intel and The Linux Foundation has already resulted in an innovative SUSE platform that addresses the needs of customers and developers alike," said Guy Lunardi, Director of Client Preloads at Novell. "With MeeGo, Novell will continue to play a leadership role by fully supporting open standards and contributing to the growth of the platform for the desktop."
PixArt “The strong momentum of MeeGo has allowed PixArt to gain entry into the automotive segment," said Gabriel Marcelo Ortiz, CEO and president of PixArt. “We are joining MeeGo and will participate as part of the MeeGo community.”
Red Flag “Red Flag is very happy to be a part of the MeeGo* Project," said Dong Jia, Red Flag president and CEO. "Red Flag supports MeeGo-based products for netbooks, handhelds and in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) and looks forward to working on the upcoming MeeGo 1.0 release."
ST-Ericsson “As a strong supporter of open source Linux, we welcome the MeeGo initiative,” says Teppo Hemia, Vice President and head of 3G Multimedia Platforms at ST-Ericsson. “ST-Ericsson will strive to provide the best reference design to the developer community, while also contributing to the development of a broad array of innovative new mobile devices.”
Tencent "As a leading service provider in China, with more than one billion registered users, Tencent believes MeeGo is one of the most promising platforms for our cross platform service offerings, and Tencent will make our popular product available upon the launch of MeeGo-based devices to extend our own product and service offering to MeeGo compliant in timely fashion. Developing on MeeGo will enable us to establish a common software framework across multiple devices, ranging from smartphones and tablets to netbooks, it will greatly simplify access to an increasingly mobile and personalized Internet and drive uptake of new and existing applications and services," said Jeff Xiong, Tencent Co-CTO and executive vice president.
TurboLinux “MeeGo preserves our business model of customization, services and support”, said Claude Zhou, General manager of TurboLinux. “TurboLinux will transition our efforts from Moblin to MeeGo.”
VietSoftware “A variety of computing devices are occupying the mind of consumers. For example, the smartphone is becoming the dominant personal device in emerging markets like Vietnam," said Dr. Son, general director of VietSoftware Inc. "As a member of Asianux Consortium, VietSoftware is eager to participate in the MeeGo initiative of Intel and Nokia. We look forward to making our meaningful contribution to this important project.”
Wind River "With Wind River's experience as a leader in a wide variety of open source and mobile platforms, we expect that MeeGo will offer a flexible software platform for delivering innovative computing devices compelling user experiences in multiple device markets," said Chris Buerger, senior director, Product Management of Wind River.
WTEC "The MeeGo Project is an important development in the mobile industry," said Phiroon Phihakendr, managing director of WTEC Co., Ltd. "We look forward to participating in the MeeGo Project."
Xandros "The convergence of powerful elements into the MeeGo project hosted by the Linux Foundation will accelerate the future of mobile computing," said Andreas Typaldos, CEO of Xandros. "For us, it means that our touch-enabled PIM can be ported quickly to a broad range of mobile devices. We've been a Qt shop since our founding in 2001 and a Moblin participant from "the beginning of that project, so MeeGo combines and extends the best of both our worlds."
Well this is a strange one. I just received in the mail (that’s “real” mail, not e-mail) an official letter from the National Association of Secretaries of State encouraging me to take advantage of all these fancy ways of keeping up-to-date with voting information. The letter took great pains to stress that the program, which includes e-mail and SMS alerts, doesn’t use any tax dollars. You know, because spending tax dollars on encouraging people to vote is PURE EVIL. This country, I swear. So, how to pay for such fancy programs? By stuffing the envelope with ads and coupons—much better than unbiased tax dollars! Chief among these ads is this one for World of Warcraft. Remember, kids: a vote for Garrosh Hellscream is a vote for tyranny!
There’s a lot going on here, but what you’re basically looking at is a focus ring, attached to an iPhone, which sends a signal to a remote unit, which then turns the real focus ring on a DSLR that would otherwise be inaccessible. There are other tools a bit like this, but the integration of an iPhone as interface element could streamline things immensely.
Looks like you can also control aperture, zoom, and whatever else is compatible with RedRock Micro’s microRemote system, likely depending mostly on your camera make and model. This is great for pros using DSLRs as B cameras or even primaries, though without a monitor you’re going to be shooting blind. Still a useful tool. No more information yet (it’s not quite announced) but I’ll update this post in a few with pricing and all that.
Around two years ago, Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, went open source. Today marks the first official release since that magical day. And let me tell you something: Dolphin works really, really well. Give it a shot when you have a chance.
I spent the better part of yesterday tooling around with the emulator—never let it be said I don’t live a charmed life—and was patently shocked with how well it runs games. Granted, I’m packing a beefy video card, so your mileage may vary, but being able to play REmake again is completely fantastic.
Throw in anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering, support for gamepads (I used a wired 360 controller) and real Wii remote support (your computer just needs to be able to see Bluetooth devices, otherwise Dolphin will emulate the Wii remote using your mouse and keyboard) and you’re looking at a very fine piece of software indeed.
Here’s a few screenshots of REmake running inside Dolphin. (I think you should be able to click them for a bigger version.) It looks quite good, yes?
For the record, my specs are: Intel Core i7 860 (overclocked to 3.8GHz), ATI Radeon 5970 (adios, paycheck!), and 4GB of RAM. I’d say REmake runs at a full 30 fps, Metroid Prime is anywhere from 30-60 fps (tends to spike here and there), and Twilight Princess runs at 25+ fps. Those are the only ones I’ve really tried so far. And yes, I own all of those games.
Adobe made it official today, the CS5 package is now available for pre-order. You can also order just the bits and pieces you want, if you don’t want to drop $1,899 for the full monty. Photoshop CS5 is looking particularly tasty, with the new content-aware fill at the top of my list of stuff I want to check out. Take a look at the demo video after the jump.
See what I mean? Pretty crazy eh? Looks like Adobe is making it really easy for photographers to fix their mistakes in post-processing. I don’t know, I still like getting it right the first time.
I should probably mention that Conan O’Brien has a show on TBS now. I know it’s not necessarily related to the latest graphics card, or to the kin 1 or kin 2, but we did spend an awful lot of time talking about the whole “I’m With Coco” movement. Sure would be silly to leave the story hanging, right?
Right! So, Conan signed a deal with TBS for a show to begin in November. Conan said this:
In three months I’ve gone from network television to Twitter to performing live in theater, and now I’m headed to basic cable. My plan is working perfectly.
The irony of the situation is that, by getting his own show at 11pm on Mondays to Thursdays, Conan is pushing back the start time of the George Lopez show. Make of that what you will.
Of course, in my world Conan can do know wrong, so I’m down with whatever Coco wants to do.
After years of rumors, hearsay, and leaks, we’ve finally gotten the opportunity to play with the final product of Project Pink. These are the first real products of Microsoft’s 2008 acquisition of Danger, creators of the sidekick. So how are they?
Read on for our impressions
Update: Now with video of the Kin 2 in action – check it out after the jump.
Officially official (as opposed to rumored, I suppose): You can now stream Netflix on your Nintendo Wii. You can only stream in standard definition, so if that matters to you… Oh, and you’ll need to request a streaming disc, Ã la the PS3, in order to stream content. That’s about it.
Maingear announced their latest today, the Quantum Shift workstation. Designed more for the content developer then the gamer, the Quantum Shift definitely brings the heat. Of course, you customize exactly how much power the Quantum Shift is packing, but it’s designed around Nvidia’s Quadro FX GPU technology.
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