This Is The Last…

The MP3 player is ten years old this month. The first commercially released personal music player capable of handling MP3 files was the MPMan F10, manufactured by Korea’s Saehan Information Systems and launched in March 1998.

The F10 contained 32MB of Flash storage, enough for a handful of songs encoded at 128Kb/s. It measured 91 x 70 x 165.5mm. It connected to an old-style parallel port on the host PC from which songs could be copied to the player. There was a tiny LCD on the front to give an indication as to what you were listening to.

The device made its debut at the CeBIT show in Hannover, Germany. It was a prototype, but Saehan must have garnered enough interest to put the player into mass production, which it did in May 1998 before going on sale in the US and Europe through importers in the summer.

In the US, local supplier Eiger Labs wanted $250 for the F10, though the price fell to $200 the following year prompted by the release of the Diamond Multimedia Rio PMP300, which was priced at $200.

The PMP300 - widely but wrongly held to be the world’s first commercial MP3 player - also had 32MB of storage fed through a parallel port. But it boasted a larger display than the F10 and also featured a Smart Media slot to allow users to increase the gadget’s storage capacity.

In the interim, MPMan had continued developing and offering MP3 players, but Apple’s move to allow Windows PC owners to use the iPod, from April 2003, resulted in explosive growth. MPMan, Rio and other pioneers couldn’t keep up.

via The Reg

A Polish teenager allegedly turned the tram system in the city of Lodz into his own personal train set, triggering chaos and derailing four vehicles in the process. Twelve people were injured in one of the incidents.

The 14-year-old modified a TV remote control so that it could be used to change track points, The Telegraph reports. Local police said the youngster trespassed in tram depots to gather information needed to build the device. The teenager told police that he modified track setting for a prank.

“He studied the trams and the tracks for a long time and then built a device that looked like a TV remote control and used it to manoeuvre the trams and the tracks,” said Miroslaw Micor, a spokesman for Lodz police.

“He had converted the television control into a device capable of controlling all the junctions on the line and wrote in the pages of a school exercise book where the best junctions were to move trams around and what signals to change.

“He treated it like any other schoolboy might a giant train set, but it was lucky nobody was killed. Four trams were derailed, and others had to make emergency stops that left passengers hurt. He clearly did not think about the consequences of his actions,” Micor added.

Transport command and control systems are commonly designed by engineers with little exposure or knowledge about security using commodity electronics and a little native wit. The apparent ease with which Lodz’s tram network was hacked, even by these low standards, is still a bit of an eye opener.

Problems with the signalling system on Lodz’s tram network became apparent on Tuesday when a driver attempting to steer his vehicle to the right was involuntarily taken to the left. As a result the rear wagon of the train jumped the rails and collided with another passing tram. Transport staff immediately suspected outside interference.

The youth, described by his teachers as an electronics buff and exemplary student, faces charges at a special juvenile court of endangering public safety.

From The Reg

Beijing (China) - China is known for creating pirated versions of DVDs and even video games, but now it is also the home of a cheap version of an entire gaming console.

James Wong takes the credit for inventing the strikingly similar-looking Wii clone. In addition to making the console look very realistic, Wong has created a “Vii” remote that also mimics its Wii counterpart.
In addition, the Vii comes with “Vii Sports” as well as Vii channels similar to the ones offered on the Wii. It also comes with a knock-off of Cooking Mama, and another bowling game.

The Chinese rip-off first showed up earlier this year but has gained more attention as the holiday season approaches, and Nintendo still faces production problems with the Wii.

The Vii is currently being sold at an online Chinese retailer for 986 yuan ($125).

From Toms

A malicious Trojan Horse has been found on several pornography web sites, claiming to install a video codec necessary to view free pornographic videos on Macs. A great deal of spam has been posted to many Mac forums, in an attempt to lead users to these sites. When the users arrive on one of the web sites, they see still photos from reputed porn videos, and if they click on the stills, thinking they can view the videos, they arrive on a web page that says the following:

Quicktime Player is unable to play movie file.
Please click here to download new version of codec.

After the page loads, a disk image (.dmg) file automatically downloads to the user’s Mac. If the user has checked Open “Safe� Files After Downloading in Safari’s General preferences (or similar settings in other browsers), the disk image will mount, and the installer package it contains will launch Installer. If not, and the user wishes to install this codec, they double-click the disk image to mount it, then double-click the package file, named install.pkg.

If the user then proceeds with installation, the Trojan horse installs; installation requires an administrator’s password, which grants the Trojan horse full root privileges. No video codec is installed, and if the user returns to the web site, they will simply come to the same page and receive a new download.

Careful you Mac users……….

Lnk

Sony said that it will begin installing 54 4K digital cinema projectors, each providing four times the resolution of 1080p, in U.S. movie theaters next month.

The first SXRD 4K systems will be going to AMC theaters in Dallas (12 screens), Indianapolis (14 screens), Riverside, Calif. (16 screens) and San Diego (12 screens). Sony will be installing both its SRX-R210 10,000 lumen and the SRX-R220 18,000 lumen unit, which provide a maximum resolution of 4096×2160 pixels and be used on screen sizes ranging from 42 to 60 ft.

According to Sony, the high resolution will virtually eliminate artifacts in frames even for people watching a movie from the front row. Pixels are set an 8.5 micrometer pitch with an intra-pixel gap of 0.35 micrometers. Each of the roughly 8.8 million pixels is just about the size of the letter “e� in the Liberty Quarter, Sony said.

The SXRD technology was originally introduced by Sony through its “Qualia� brand of high-end home entertainment devices. In 2004, the company announced its first 4K projectors and the capability to display four HD movies next to each other from the same projector.

The 1200-pound SRX-R210 and SRX-R220 both are rated at a contrast ratio of 2000:1 and integrate xenon lamps as source of the projector beam. The 18,000 lumen projectors use a 4.2 kW lamp, the 13,000 lumen model a 3.0 kW lamp and the 8000 lumen unit a 2.0 kW model. Sony said that the projectors will consume on average 1.2 kW of power.

The 4K projectors are scheduled to go in operation in December.

Yes people…. There could be a chance we will get to see RAMBO IV in hi res digital on the big screen!!!!

From Toms

Its nothing new that old people play the Wii. But I still get a kick out of seeing the pictures. Its pretty amazing that for the first time in 17 years, Nintendo Wii has taken the worldwide lead of a videogame console. Its because they’ve reached out to a different target market, and its worked.

My mom told me that there was an advertisement in her Good Housekeeping magazine for the Nintendo DS game Brain Age. Brain Age has puzzles, sudoku, and math problems designed to keep the brain active. My mom’s playing Brain Age now, and I think that’s pretty damn cool.

(Via Boing Boing)

I’ve been doing some house hunting and I came across this modern prefabricated home in Sunset Magazine. I think its really cool how they are making this house using recycled materials, you can add solar panels really easily, the living room has a wall that folds so that your room extends to the patio. Its made to have good ventilation and where they could they used recycled materials.

Then my husband showed me this prefab (in Wired magazine) called the “Loblolly House” and I thought it was just gorgeous.

Both of these houses can be taken apart and reassembled at different locations. There’s no pricing anywhere for the Loblolly house yet. But for the Sunset Breeze House it costs about $250/square foot. Which is not a bad price, but then you have to buy land. I think that puts us out of the range of being able to afford it.

I know very little about architecture and going green. But I do know that our electricity bill is expensive. If I could do things naturally and more energy efficient - I would rather do it that way. I’m excited to see what progress can be made in making homes green and to see how they can make this more affordable for us regular people.

(Via Digg)

I think this is really cool. I would love to play video games with my grandparents (but I have to get my hands on a Wii first). The cool thing about the Wii is that it gives people that aren’t very active a chance to be active.

The marketing minds behind Nintendo looked beyond the traditional gamer mediums and advertised its innovations at targets as far from gaming as you can imagine, such as retirees. Nintendo even went against the current and took the Wii to an AARP convention.

Nintendo’s efforts seemed to have paid off. The Chicago Tribune is reporting that the Wii is now the latest rage at the Sedgebrook retirement community in Lincolnshire, where the average age is 77. In particular, the Wii Bowling component of Wii Sports has members of the retirement community hooked on playing the Wii installed inside the Sedgebrooks’s clubhouse lounge.

“I’ve never been into video games, but this is addictive,â€? said 72-year-old Flora Dierbach. “They come in after dinner and play. Sometimes, on Saturday afternoons, their grandkids come play with them … A lot of grandparents are being taught by their grandkids. But, now, some grandparents are instead teaching their grandkids.â€?

Wii Bowling has become so well received that more than 20 residents signed up to participate in a virtual bowling tournament without the need to leave the clubhouse lounge.

Although Wii Sports features cartoon-like graphics and characters—imagery normally aimed at children—the retirees are absolutely taken with the realism offered by the Wii Remote.

“This is pretty realistic. You can even put English on the ball,â€? said Don Hahn, 76, a veteran of numerous real-life bowling competitions. “I used to play Pac-Man a little bit, but with this you’re actually moving around and doing something. You’re not just sitting there pushing buttons and getting carpal tunnel.â€?

You can read the rest of the article here.

Yep, that’s a Wiimote stuck in a TV. I heard this story on NPR yesterday…

Nintendo announces a recall of wrist straps attached to its new Wii game system’s remote controls.

People playing games on the Wii console use the remote control to simulate actions such as swinging a golf club or a baseball bat.

A number of users have experienced the wrist straps breaking mid-swing, sending the remote control flying into televisions and light fixtures — and at other people. Nintendo is offering a stronger strap, free of charge, to consumers who contact the company.

You might want to check out this website, Wii Have a Problem, which documents all things broken by playing the Wii…like this girl’s face.

That’s gotta hurt.

This weekend, Jason and I helped my grandparents get setup with a computer. They’ve never owned a computer, and don’t know how to use the internet. We got as far as setting up the computer, and showing them how to use the mouse and how to play solitare. They did pretty good, but I have a feeling that once they get the internet, we’re gonna be hearing from them daily.

In honor of this momentous event, I present you with one of my favorite Onion stories…

“Getting Mom Onto Internet a Sisyphean Ordeal”

This story might as well have been about me and my mom.