So Kenwood
announced a whole mess of high-end AV amplifiers, but the VRS-N8100,
the "Supreme," is a monster, with a huge array of video formats
[MPEG-1, MPEG-2, Xvid], audio [MP3, WMA, OggVorbis], and still images,
including PNG. Not only that, but it's got a 10/100 Ethernet interface
for lots of lovely streaming, a bevy of surround sound formats,
inputs, outputs -- it's crazy fancy, I'm saying. Plus they even built
in a system that adds back in the high tones to MP3s and other
compressed audio formats that sometimes get cropped during compression
(hearing is believing, of course). TechJapan was kind enough to
translate the press release, and Akiba.SorobanGeeks fished out the
high quality images (and more information on the rest of the Kenwood
offerings). Read - Press
Release [TechJapan] Look
[Akiba.SorobanGeeks]
You know, we
just can't win with Nokia. First they send me threatening letters all
last month about removing pictures of the 'Codename: Charlie' 6630
(which we dutifully, if quietly, ignored), then they screw up my
peaceful Monday morning by announcing 5 new phones. Rather than give
them all my precious front page space, we'll take a look at all the
new phone goodness after the jump.
Desktopsites Announces Availability of Konect 5.0 including Konect Launcher
Desktopsites Announces Availability of Konect 5.0 including Konect Launcher03/24/2005 05:14 AM desktopsites Inc. (“desktopsites”), a rapidly emerging leader in
access infrastructure software, or serverware, for the small and
mid-size business (“SMB”) market, today announced the North American
availability of the industry leading Konect Launcher as part of the
latest version of Konect™ 5.0. [PRWEB Mar 24, 2005]
I'll admit that I'm not much of an expert when it comes to high-end
stereo systems, but I certainly know shiny bits of kit when I see
them, and these two new Accuphese amps, the C-2000 and P-3000
certainly fit the part. Golden knobs and retro displays will cost you
real money, though, as each of the amps sitting around $3,600. Read [SorobanGeeks]
Gefen releases audio distribution amplifiers
Gefen releases audio distribution amplifiers07/02/2004 08:30 AM Gefen is offering new audio distribution amplifiers that can perform
double duty -- splitting one analog audio signal multiple times and
enabling the long-distance extension of each individual output...
HiFi headphone review featuring Airhead and Bithead amplifiers
In order to get the best possible listening experience from your
music collection, you need to be able to hear it well. Whether playing
CDs, lossy rips, or lossless encodes from your computer, you'll need
something the music will sound good on. Enter the Ars HiFi headphone
review. Audio mavens and
Audio/Visual Club moderators Matt Woodward and Jeff Forbes
strapped on seven different headphones and two different amplifiers to
see which ones fared the best.
Unfortunately, not all headphones are made equal. High
Fidelity (aka. Hi-Fi) headphones are headphones that are held to
higher acoustical standards than the run-of-the-mill headphones that
come with portable Cassette/CD/MP3 players (yes, that includes the
iPod.)
If you're going the HiFi route, be prepared to drop some coin,
anywhere from US$60 to US$350 for the products in this review. But if
you're an audiophile, it's money well spent. Check out the review to
see which headphones are most worth the money.
Flower Power Gadget Turns Plants Into Amplifiers (Reuters)
Flower Power Gadget Turns Plants Into Amplifiers (Reuters)07/20/2004 07:58 AM Reuters - People who like talking to their plants
can now enjoy a musical accompaniment, thanks to a Japanese
invention that turns petals and leaves into amplifiers.
They aren't dancing in the street, but purple-clad men have
laptops strapped to their bellies in Times Square: Today in New
York, Intel has been showing off its new Centrino system, a set of
three components including a wireless module, that they
claim will radically increase battery life, potentially improving it
by 50 to 100 percent, through more efficient processor usage and chips
that control the power to various components including the wireless
radio.
The CIO for Philadelphia, Dianah Neff, says
'It's a technology whose time is here.' Other cities have announced
similar plans but none as comprehensive as Philadelphia. Lev Gonick,
chief information officer at Case Western Reserve University, which is
spearheading a WiFi project in Cleveland said, 'We like to say it
should be like the air you breathe - free and available everywhere. We
look at this like PBS or NPR. It should be a public resource.' " [patrickWeb]
Two
blanks against the trend! The band has decided to make a statement for
its fans and for music consumers in general and is releasing the album
including a bonus DVD with 2 blank CD-Rs which have the same label as
the CD itself. Alexx Wesselsky (singer and head of the group): "We are
of the opinion that the music buyers are criminalized enough and have
been made responsible for the wretched state in the music industry. We
are giving them the chance to make 2 legal copies for private use with
'official blanks'. It can't always be that the end users have to take
the blame for something that international corporations have arranged
with their artist-burning methods."
Including Automator Actions with applications06/05/2005 11:54 PM The way developers can include Automator Actions with their
applications in this manner is by placing them inside the
application's bundle. Tiger can smell files placed inside the
application bundle if they're placed inside the folder:
Contents/Library/. Actions placed in the Contents/Library/Automator
will be shown in Automator. To see the contents of a bundle,
control-click the bundle and choose Show Package Contents.
PCHome scoops up
leaked photos of a whole new line of Konica Minolta cameras, including
this high-end Z3 that PhotographyBlog predicted just a couple of days
ago. Expect a proper announcement from Konica Minolta real soon
now.
Iran blocks more 'Net sites -- including MT06/17/2004 09:49 AM The government of Iran has reportedly stepped up Net censorship again.
The latest blacklist includes porn sites and political sites as one
might expect, but also geek self-help sites and tech services like
Movable Type. Link
(Thanks, hoder
)
I knew it was only going to be a matter o time. Before a mainstream
company started putting advertisments. This is the site that was in there mainstream
news feed.
I understand the economics of doing this and I had considered it at
one time in order to try and generate some revenue to pay for our ever
increasing hosting cost but decided against it. With Ziff Davis and
number of other sites pulling our content it didnt make any sense to
pollute or feed with advertisments.
Xerox cutting about 800 more U.S. jobs, including 200 in Rochester
Good news for those people
who actually use iTunes Music Store -- in celebration of the
approaching sale of the 100 millionth song, Apple will be giving away
50 special 20GB iPods to the purchasers of every 100,000th song. If
you're the lucky person who purchases the song number 100 million,
you'll win a 17-inch Powerbook, a 40GB iPod, and a gift certificate
for 10,000 iTunes downloads. Oh, and your own Celebrity playlist, too,
which I recommend you fill up entirely with Hall & Oates, or at
least Oates.
Mellel 1.8 released, including Outliner, OpenType support
Mellel 1.8 released, including Outliner, OpenType support09/15/2004 11:39 PM RedleX today released Mellel 1.8, a major update to the leading word
processor for Mac OS X. Mellel 1.8 offers several innovative new
features and enhancements, including the most advanced Outline support
among word processors today, the first implementation of the advanced
OpenType technology in a word processor on Mac OS X, and enhanced
language support, including support for several features and languages
that were not supported on Mac OS X to date. The update is free to all
registered users of Mellel
I believe we have officially reached the point where nothing DAN BLATHER says can be trusted -- including A and THE
Eleven forthcoming novels (including mine) excerpted11/11/2003 08:14 AM Fantastic Metropolis has published exerpts from eleven
forthcoming novels by Liz Willians, Peter Crowther, Leslie What, Jeff
VanderMeer, and me, among others. The excerpts are here, and
the link below goes straight to the excerpt from "Someone Comes to
Town, Someone Leaves Town," one of my novels-in-progress, which
currently stands at 75,000 words of about 100,000 in total, and will
likely see print sometime in 2005.
Alan woke with something soft over his face. It was pitch dark, and he
couldn't breathe. He tried to reach up, but his arms wouldn't move. He
couldn't sit up. Something heavy was sitting on his chest. The soft
thing -- a pillow? -- ground against his face, cruelly pressing down
on the cartilage in his nose, filling his mouth as he gasped for air.
He shuddered hard, and felt something give near his right wrist and
then his arm was loose from the elbow down. He kept working the arm,
his chest afire, and then he'd freed it to the shoulder, and something
bit him, hard little teeth like knives, in the fleshy underside of his
bicep. Flailing dug the teeth in harder, and he knew he was bleeding,
could feel it seeping down his arm. Finally, he got his hand onto
something, a dessicated, mummified piece of flesh. Davey. Davey's
ribs, like dry stones, cold and thin. He felt up higher, felt for the
place where Davey's arm met his shoulder and then twisted as hard as
he could, until the arm popped free in its socket. He shook his head
violently and the pillow slid free.
The room was still dark, and the hot, moist air rushed into his
nostrils and mouth as he gasped it in. He heard Davey moving in the
dark, and as his eyes adjusted, he saw him unfolding a knife. It was a
clasp knife with a broken hasp and it swung open with the sound of a
cockroach's shell crunching underfoot. The blade was rusty.
We just had a perfect day in Los Angeles, starting with a drive
from Pasadena straight into the heart of downtown Los Angeles and
parking underneath the magnificent new LA Cathedral (see photos at the
bottom of my Alaska 2002
trip report). From there we walked two blocks to the
new stainless steel-clad Walt Disney Concert
Hall and took a self-paced 1-hour audio tour. No need to go
to Bilbao, Spain anymore to see a really large all-metal Frank Gehry
and the audio commentary is very interesting. From there it is
only a 1-block walk to the LA Museum of Contemporary
Art, a building designed by Arata Isozaki. After all of that
minimalism and modernism it seemed natural to have lunch at ...
Langer's Delicatessen (see this New
Yorker article). [Did Donald Judd eat pastrami?]
We got into a conversation with a fellow dining alone in the next
booth. He was on his way to play poker at one of the traditional
California card casinos. What does he do when not at the gaming
tables? "I live in Venice. I'm a screenwriter.
Nothing filmed yet but I've got a few projects in development."
Motorola MPx and MPx220 Rumors, Including Release Dates
PhoneMag has a lot of
information from a "trusted Asian carrier source" about Motorola's
upcoming MPx and MPx220 smartphones, included (projected) release
dates for September 27th for the MPx220, and November 30th for MPx,
although the latter may be delayed until 2005. According to the
source, Motorola is still working on the firmware and deciding how
much ram should be in the model (initially they were talking about
32MB, which is almost preposterously low for a high-end model like
this, but it's since been bumped to 48).
There are MPx prototypes out in the field, we know. How closely
they will resemble actual, shipping model is yet to be seen.
Two arrested in America Online spam scheme, including AOL employee
Two arrested in America Online spam scheme, including AOL employee06/24/2004 04:41 AM Siouxcityjournal.com - Thu Jun 24, 08:35 am GMT Grok Description matches for Kenwood Announces New AV Amplifiers, Including VRS-N8100 "Supreme" GrokA matches for Kenwood Announces New AV Amplifiers, Including VRS-N8100 "Supreme"
Kenwood Announces New AV Amplifiers, Including VRS-N8100 "Supreme"
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