Podcast Archive

February 16, 2006
All the News You Need - Now Organized!

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Topics in this Podcast:

We’ve hit out 20th Podcast! Hooray! This time we add a little coherence to the show with the introduction of - *gasp* - sections!
 
News on Designtechnica
I give my $.02 on the Treo 650 review, which I did. My response: I’m a jerk. I also give a quick recap of the Sony Ericsson W800i Walkman phone – looks like good stuff. We have a couple threads of interest, mainly the HDCP fiasco. What’s the problem? Listen to find out.
 
Audio
The open source iTunes competitor, Songbird, takes off, unfortunately lacking wings. The Ipod nano aims low with a 1GB version, as Apple axes the Shuffle. Video iPod mock ups flood the net – hear why they ain’t true. Apple gets sued for hearing loss. I said APPLE GETS SUED FOR HEARING LOSS. And defective nanos. Dell kills off their DOA HDD DJ player, Mobiblu adds a 2GB DAH1500Hi player, and Portal Player ramps up the iPod rumor mill.
 
Video
Blu-Ray pricing! OMG OMG! They’re CHARGING for the discs! HBO says no to PVRs. That makes them HB-NO! Hahahaha! Okay, not funny. And Philips has a great deal on the RC9800i remote bundled with a SL300i multimedia receiver. Seriously good deal.
 
Computers
MS Antispyware removes Norton Antivirus. No, that’s not a joke. Intel makes a deal with Skype to lock out old chips and AMD from certain features, and shows off quad core server chips. Google blacklists BMW.de. FTC set to humiliate companies that advertise with spyware, and news that Vista will run on only 50% of current generation PCs. Apple updates the MacBook Pro before they even ship, and SavRow intros a gi-normous ‘laptop’.
 
Cell phones and Communication
Interesting figures on the migration from land lines to cell phones. Fon looks to make a wireless mesh network of payable WiFi goodness, thanks to Google and Skype. Hp launches the iPaq hw6900 – sweeeet.
 
Gaming
The Xbox360 gets the hacked. Well, mildly. Also, supply problems for the Xbox 360 look to be over in the next month. Finally! 32 PS3 games are available for preorder at Gamestop, well, were available, and a tentative launch date of Sept 21st has been leaked. A ‘hands on’, which lacks any real verification, claims the PS3 will not be too far ahead of the Xbox360. The Nintendo DS gets a TV Tuner, Opera browser, and 4GB hard drive. And don’t feel bad about gaming – video games keep the mind young.
 
Misc
Nanotube based batteries could revolutionized mobile devices. A Cincinnati traffic monitoring company requires RFID implants for data center access. Hello 1984! And then there’s the guy with the brain implant… more on that next week.