Some caveats, but this is nice. Are you angry that Sony has limited your memory stick videos to “Nintendo DS” resolution? (320×240). Well, a PMF player has finally been released, allowing you to view clips at the PSPs Native Resolution (480×272). Link.
Nice little overview of the CVS hack from Alex Beam at the Globe – seems like they don’t mind the hacking…“It restored my faith in American ingenuity to see that electrical engineer/hardware tinkerer John Maushammer had taken the trouble to ”hack,” or modify, the new CVS disposable camcorder. After Maushammer’s intervention, described on the Make magazine website makezine.com, the $30 disposable camera becomes . . . reusable! That’s what I call a bargain”… Link.
Noah Glass from ODEO showed me this amazing USB mic- Blue Microphones is now shipping a USB microphone designed for professional recording applications. Dubbed the Snowball, the mic is an extension of Blue’s line of spherical mics that includes the original Ball, the world’s first phantom-powered dynamic; the 8-Ball condenser mic. Link blog post and photo in action…
Wow, I liked the sidebar in the demos I saw of the next version of Windows, you could “roll your own info bar” – but you don’t need to wait for Windows now – Google today introduced Google Desktop Version 2 with a Google Sidebar, a panel on your desktop which provides convenient, one-glance access to all sorts of personalized information that is similar to the sidebar that you are going to see in the upcoming Windows Vista (previously Longhorn)... [via] Link.
Interesting new self-publishing? – Amazon.com Inc. started selling new works of short literature and nonfiction Friday from authors who write them exclusively for the Internet retailer. It won’t be offering printed editions, just digital copies of short stories that can be e-mailed, downloaded or printed from a Web site for 49 cents a pop. [via] Link.
ZaphodB42 writes “We’ve all seen that spiffy “transparent” desktop hack on the net. But thats ancient history. Here is a quicktime movie of a “live” transparent desktop. Ok, you’ve probably figured out that its not a “real” transparent desktop. For one thing, I did not have all the camera angles perfect, so things do not line up exactly. The video cameras I have do not have a wide enough zoom lens. But with a little more time, I’ll get things aligned and post a new video. Still a neat trick”. Link.
Entertaining article on why most of us buy CD players…One of the great puzzles of gadgetry goes thusly: Why are portable CD players outselling digital audio players three-to-one? No, that’s not a misprint—for every American who bought an iPod or Dell Jukebox in 2004, three of their countrymen bought a descendant of the 21-year-old Discman… Link.
