Sony Includes PSP Movies on Blu-ray Disks Sony is very excited that it has worked out how to add PlayStation Portable compatible movie files to its Blu-ray titles. Too excited, in fact, as the main benefit is for Sony itself, as it no longer has to include a separate DVD-ROM disk in the box. The “new technology” lets the subset of people who […]
Sony is very excited that it has worked out how to add PlayStation Portable compatible motion picture files to its Blu-ray titles. Too excited, in fact, as the main benefit is for Sony itself, as it no longer has to include a separate DVD-ROM disk in the box.
The “new technology” lets the subset of people who own both a PSP and a PlayStation 3 hook the two together and send the motion picture direct to the handheld console. It’s called “Digital Copy”, and the extra files will only work on a PSP, not on another computer and certainly not on any other console.
The first titles, Godzilla and The Ugly Truth, are both from Sony’s movie wing, and it’s likely that all future Digital Copy-compatible disks will be, too. After all, why would, say, Disney want to package up a disk with extras that benefit so few people, and in doing so effectively support a competitor? There’s hardly a huge, untapped market of PSP/PS3 owners out there, craving for dual-format movie synergy, is there?
Dropbox, a popular cloud-storage service, on Tuesday released an iPhone app available in the App Store. We had some time to test drive the app, and it’s truly brilliant in its simplicity. Here’s how you would use Dropbox: First on your personal you sign up for a Dropbox account at getdropbox.com. Then you download the Dropbox […]
Dropbox, a popular cloud-storage service, on Tuesday released an iPhone app available in the App Store. We’d some time to test drive the app, and it’s truly brilliant in its simplicity.
Here’s how you would use Dropbox: First on your personal you sign up for a Dropbox account at getdropbox.com. Then you download the Dropbox desktop software. After installing that, you’ll be able to access your Dropbox folder, where you can toss in files to be hosted over the cloud, meaning you can access them from any computer — and now the iPhone — so long as you have an world wide web connection.
The iPhone app is seamlessly integrated into this service. Launching the app loads your Dropbox on your iPhone, and you can then navigate through your folders and launch files. (Various music and video formats are supported.) You can also upload photos and video from your iPhone’s pic album (no, not from your iPhone’s iPod library).
It’s pretty neat. Dropbox users can even share folders one another. Currently on my iPhone I’m listening to a Dropbox folder of songs shared with my friend Teresa.
The Dropbox service is free for 2GB of storage per month. It costs $10 per month for 50 GB and $20 per month for 100GB. The iPhone app is free, so why not give it a try?
iPhone App ‘Scarab’ Reinvents the Literary Journal Tech-savvy English scholars and poetry lovers: We know you’re out there. (Heck, I majored in English and I work here.) There’s an iPhone app we think you’d love. It’s called Scarab, and its goal is to reinvent the literary journal. Scarab is a literary magazine reader that does more than load works of fiction, poetry and […]
Tech-savvy English scholars and poetry lovers: We know you’re out there. (Heck, I majored in English and I work here.) There’s an iPhone app we think you’d love. It’s called Scarab, and its goal is to reinvent the literary journal.
Scarab is a literary magazine reader that does more than load works of fiction, poetry and non-fiction on your iPhone screen. Each literary piece is accompanied with an audio reading, dictated sometimes by the author (if he or she opted to provide it), whose mugshot appears next to the title. So you get the words, the voice and even the face behind each work.
“The ideal part about poetry or any literature really is going to a reading and getting to hear the author’s voice,” stated Brian Wilkins, editor and co-creator of Scarab, in a phone interview. “It’s nearly as much fun when those two come together in one place. The iPhone really made it possible for us.”
We’d some hands-on time with the app, and we totally love the clean interface and the idea as a whole. Once you tap a literary piece, the app immediately downloads the audio recording, and soon enough you can hit play to hear the author’s reading. Each “issue” contains a collection of literary works submitted by various authors. (The October 2009 issue features 11 pieces, including a poem from the famous Charles Simic.) The app also includes transcripts of author interviews.
Wilkins, who has a master of fine arts in poetry, developed the app with his former college roommate Ian Terrell. They’re inviting creative writers of all calibers to submit their works of fiction, non-fiction and poetry for consideration. Starving artists even have an chance to earn a buck, too: Each issue of Scarab costs $3 as an in-app purchase; 20 percent of every issue sale is divided among the authors. Wilkins promises the submission guidelines are open-ended, even though he likes that works stay under 2,500 words.
Here’s what bugged us: You must buy the Scarab app for $1 and then pay $3 for an issue. That means when you first purchase the app, you’ve no content. That doesn’t seem quite right. (Update: Terrell points out in the comments below that Apple requires apps to be paid apps if they incorporate in-app purchasing.) We think it’d be a wiser idea for the creators to include at least one free promotional issue with a purchase of Scarab to entice users to buy future issues for $3 each. That way, iPhone owners would be able to try the app before committing to spending more on content.
Still, we’re not complaining about paying for additional content. We appreciate these artists, and we know literary journals aren’t exactly moneymaking machines. We’re interested in seeing how in-app purchasing works out for Scarab, because thus far it’s not raking in much dough for some iPhone developers. But with some smart execution, we think Scarab has an opportunity to become tremendously popular among creative writers and literature enthusiasts.
Using eight cheap webcams, a GPS receiver and open-source software, Roy D. Ragsdale built a rig that can do what Google’s Street-View cars do: take images of the world around it and stitch them together into panoramas. The difference? This version can be carried on your head and cost just $300 to make. The hacked-together […]
Using eight cheap webcams, a GPS receiver and open-source software, Roy D. Ragsdale built a rig that can do what Google’s Street-View cars do: take images of the world around it and stitch them together into panoramas. The difference? This version can be carried on your head and cost just $300 to make. The hacked-together software suite can even throw out files that can be viewed in Google Earth. Ragsdale:
Construction was straightforward. On a flat octagonal heavy-cardboard base, I glued small posts for the cameras’ clips to latch onto. I aligned each unit and then put the USB hubs and the GPS receiver in the middle. I secured the cables with Velcro and sandwiched everything with another piece of cardboard. The whole thing’s the size of a small pizza box, weighing less than 1 kilogram. Excluding the notebook (a 2-gigahertz machine with 512 megabytes of RAM running Ubuntu Linux), the hardware cost about $300.
Ragsdale tested out the camera, which he calls PhotoTrail, by walking around Boston, holding it above his head. Then, to stress the system, which grabs sets of 1280-by-1024 jpeg files in eight second bursts, he put it on top of a jeep and drove it around his home base, West Point NY. The result? Success. The camera grabbed pictures each 20 seconds at speeds of up to 100 kilometers per hour (62mph).
Ragsdale plans on shrinking the kit even further: the webcams can shed their bulky plastic cases, and replacing the laptop which controls the cameras with a custom-made circuit board could make it “small enough to be integrated into a headband or hat.”
You hear that, Google? Hire this guy to make you a camera and send it to me. I’ll shoot the tiny streets of my city that you left out of your Street View and send them to you. You’re welcome.
Nikon’s D300s is the very same camera we loved two years ago, but with a few new tricks to try to stay relevant in this crazy video-shootin’ DSLR world we live in. Namely, 720p video.
Same Ol’ Same Ol’
The D300s remains a capable, even impressive camera. I mean, it’s not like it got worse: The D300 retains the same sensor, excellent 51-point autofocus system, fantastic chassis build quality and ergonomics—just about the same everything—as the D300, and it still holds up 2 years later, mostly.
Low-light performance is solid, as you can see in the giant sample gallery here that walks through ISO ranges. We’re speaking fairly good-looking stuff up through ISO1600, though noise starts to creep in there, finally getting oogly around ISO3200. It’s no 5D Mark II or D700, but it still stands up. Color saturation remains top-notch, and it seemed to handle white balance even a bit superior than 5DMkII we shot alongside it at Giz Gallery last week. Bottom line, though, you’re getting the same D300 performance. (Which means D300 reviews are still worth reading.)
So What’s New?
• 720p video recording • Extra SDHC slot • More Active-D Lighting controls • Tweaked button layout
At last, here’s a GPU-accelerated Flash player. That means two things: One, my laptop won’t melt every time I run freaking Hulu. Two, since nearly each Nvidia GPU is supported, even smartphones will be able to play HD Flash video.
Nvidia has been demonstrating builds of the GPU-accelerated Flash player around, and it’s making an announcement on October 5. According to those who have seen it, it provides ultra-smooth high definition video playback, even on portable Tegra platforms.
Took long enough: The near-vaporware Garmin nuvifone G60 GPS-cum-fone is actually coming out, and it’s gonna be on AT&T come Oct. 4 for $300, with an extra $5/month for navigation services. I’m sure it will fail miserably. [Yahoo]
8 Outrageously Annoying Tech Videos Most Television commercials are annoying, but the tech industry takes the cake for making ads so bad that you’ve to question if it was intentional. Ever seen Snakes on a Plane? Now envision that the creators were given the Microsoft account and told, “Make us look cool with one of those ‘viral videos’ that we […]
Most Television commercials are annoying, but the tech industry takes the cake for making ads so bad that you have to question if it was intentional.
Ever seen Snakes on a Plane? Now imagine that the creators were given the Microsoft account and told, “Make us look cool with one of those ‘viral videos’ that we hear the kids are so excited about these days.” What else explains the awfulness of these commercials and infomercials?
Who, in their wildest imagination, would think a video of a woman puking on her husband — three times — would increase the appeal of Internet Explorer 8? Or that a creepy, unbelievably diverse group of weirdos hosting a “Launch Party” would help sell Windows 7? We were close to puking ourselves.
Those are just a few examples of what you’re about to witness. Here, we round up a list of the 8 most God-awful, weird, and horrible-beyond-apprehension tech video ads we’ve ever seen. In Jay Leno fashion, we’ll run down the list in reverse order, from least offensive to most offensive, for the sake of your stomachs. Hang on tight.
8. MSI’s Butt-Crack-Compatible Notebooks
We can only envision the altered mental say that MSI’s marketing team was when it concocted this bizarre ad. We’re sure these spandex-clad actors aren’t really catching notebooks with their butts — and it’s a little funny — but geez Louise, it tickles us. That doesn’t mean we’re perverts, does it?
7. Nintendo’s Cross-Dressing Legend of Zelda
In conversations about the Legend of Zelda videogame series, we’re well aware that a lot of people mistakenly call Link, the main character of the game, Zelda. That’s a funny mistake, because Link is the dude, and Zelda is the chick. Perhaps Nintendo was poking fun at the Zelda-Link mixup when the company decided to cast a woman to play Link in this old Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past commercial. That or Nintendo is just weird. Actually, the rap song and the dancing make the latter theory seem stronger.
6. GE’s Soulful Tribute to Its Locomotives
Why are there even GE Locomotive commercials? Who the hell is going to go out and buy a locomotive after watching a video on YouTube? We can tell this was an attempt at a clever joke, but the grizzly, bearded actors, who are probably just glad to have jobs at all in today of industrial offshoring, don’t deliver. Bonus: There’s a keytar! (Thanks for suggesting this one, @CycleFreak!)
5. Pets.com’s Tone-Deaf Sock Puppet
Pets.com should’ve taken a tip from the Taco Bell chihuahua, who was a charming cutie. Boy was this website lazy with this sorry excuse for a puppet. It looks like it was haphazardly stitched together by Rosie O’Donnell’s character in Another One Rides the Bus. If you’re a pet community website, just use a real freaking dog! And this video, which features the sock puppet singing in a painfully off-key way, is the worst of the bunch. Even the nameless Wired.com staffers who kinda liked the sock puppet hate this commercial. (Good call on this one, @AlexisMadrigal)
4. Palm’s Creepy Ice Maiden
An affectless, eyebrowless lady soft-talking like Christian Bale certainly sent shivers down our spines, but we doubt it really helped sell Palm Pre phones. Bonus: parody videos like this one!
3. Microsoft’s Cringeworthy Songsmith Spot
Microsoft should publish a book called How to Annoy Consumers and Humiliate People. In American Idol fashion, Microsoft must have done a casting call for people with laryngitis, just to demonstrate that Songsmith can give even the worst vocalists the power to sing. Well, the ad convinces us of the complete opposite. Thanks to the trauma from watching this video, I probably have a psychological trigger that compels me to immediately punch a person in the jaw if I ever see them singing in front of a computer. (Kudos for calling this one out, @a1by and @pushkin504!)
2. Microsoft’s Cheesy Windows 7 Launch Party
This one’s especially astounding because the Windows 7 operating system is surprisingly cool — so it was difficult to conceive that the product’s marketing team could be so utterly lame. You’d have to be a neutered space alien to identify with any of these soulless beings gathering for a “launch party” for Windows 7. Because, sure, sane human beings do that. The last time I saw a video with such an awkwardly eerie vibe was when I wrote a research paper on the Heaven’s Gate cult. Yeah, you know — that video they shot right before they committed mass suicide. Same feeling. The only thing that saves this informercial is that there’s a shorter parody video, which is hilarious.
This video is so bad, it almost takes the cake for the most horrible tech promo video of all time — except for the fact that Microsoft made one even worse earlier this year.
1. Microsoft’s OMGIGP, a.k.a. That Puking Video
When Microsoft met with me to talk about Internet Explorer 8, the company reps stated Microsoft’s goal with IE8 was to erase perceptions of Internet Explorer 6. Apparently lurid images of puking were part of that strategy. Sorry, Microsoft, but I still remember the atrocious IE 6 as clearly as the time I suffered from near-death pneumonia. And your puke-fest video makes me want to keep a more-than-safe distance from IE 8.
PSPgo Porn: Sexy Photos of Sony’s Tiny Gaming Console digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/playstation/PSPgo_Porn_Sexy_Pics_of_Sony_s_Tiny_Gaming_Console’; Sony delivered unto the Gadget Lab a new PSPgo. And while we promised Sony we wouldn’t tell you our opinion of the device just yet, we can show you these pics — nearly a dozen of them — of the newest PlayStation portable as it looks coming out of the box. Scope out these […]
Sony delivered unto the Gadget Lab a new PSPgo. And while we promised Sony we wouldn’t tell you our view of the device just yet, we have the ability to show you these pics — almost a dozen of them — of the newest PlayStation portable as it looks coming out of the box.
Scope out these delightful naked PSPgo images by Wired.com’s jolly pic editor Jim Merithew.
UPDATE 9/28/2009: Wired’s review of the PSPgo finds it’s cute, playable, but high-priced and prone to disappoint seasoned PSP gamers. Read more. Also, check out pics from iFixit’s teardown of the PSPgo.
What time is it? Time to upgrade your PSP. In this ménage à trois, the original Sony PSP is on top and the PSP Trim is on the bottom, with the PSPgo in the middle.
Just like a parking meter, the PSPgo is massive on change.
Rejoice, exhibitionists of the world, for TweetReel for iPhone will allow you to record videos at 640 x 480 pixels and tweet them. At last, your drunken thoughts and sexual mishaps available to your 26 followers in full high-res detail.
It’s pretty easy: Download Tweet Reel to your iPhone 3GS, open it, make a video, write a tweet, and share with the world using TweetReel.com, much like you do know with photos and services like yfrog. Perpetual 480p personal embarrassment is only $3 away. [iTunes App Store]
At last, here’s a 
Rejoice, exhibitionists of the world, for TweetReel for iPhone will allow you to record videos at 640 x 480 pixels and tweet them. At last, your drunken thoughts and sexual mishaps available to your 26 followers in full high-res detail.
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