FocuSoft Tech Blog |
- AOC’s 2436Vw does 24-inches of power sipping LCD on the cheap
- PCI Express 3.0 specification formally delayed, products pushed to 2011
- Zune HD’s "Apps" menu item spotted in the Marketplace, still short on details
- Gateway’s 11.6-inch EC1803h CULV ultraportable surfaces in Canada
- Dallas Cowboys HD scoreboard hanging too low?
- Say what you like about the Google Books Kool-Aid, but it tastes much better than Microsoft’s sour grapes
- After bigger, thinner and brighter, Samsung planning even faster LCDs for IFA
- Tangle-Proof Headphones
- Wolfenstein – Xbox 360 vs PS3 Graphics Comparison
- Star Wars Force Trainer
| AOC’s 2436Vw does 24-inches of power sipping LCD on the cheap Posted: 23 Aug 2009 05:03 AM PDT
 It’s nothing too astonishing in the specs department (300 nits, 60,000:1 contrast, 5ms response time), and the DVI and VGA plugs are rather lonesome without an HDMI or DisplayPort plug to tag along, but we can’t fault AOC for the 2436Vw’s $220 pricetag. The 49W of power draw in a 24-inch 1080p display doesn’t hurt either, and we’re sort of digging the clean design. The 2436Vw is out now. [Via Electronista] Filed under: Displays AOC’s 2436Vw does 24-inches of power sipping LCD on the cheap originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 23 Aug 2009 07:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| PCI Express 3.0 specification formally delayed, products pushed to 2011 Posted: 23 Aug 2009 02:12 AM PDT
 We’ve been enjoying (or just dealing with, depending on perspective) PCI Express 2.0 since early 2007, and it now looks as if we may still be utilizing said protocol come early 2011. Way back in June of ‘08, we began to hear whispers that the next iteration of the technology would be finalized by the end of this year, but now the PCI SIG has formally delayed the release of the specification until the second quarter of 2010. What does that mean for the consumer? Try coping with the fact that you won’t see a PCIe 3.0 product until 2011. As the story goes, the delay was needed in order to “maintain backward compatibility with current PCI Express standards,” and while the technical details of all that may interest some, it’s the awfully unfortunate setback that’s most notable here. But hey, at least all those PCIe 1.0 cards that are still totally relevant will work with your next (next-next?) PC! [Via Reg Hardware] Filed under: Peripherals PCI Express 3.0 specification formally delayed, products pushed to 2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 23 Aug 2009 04:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| Zune HD’s "Apps" menu item spotted in the Marketplace, still short on details Posted: 23 Aug 2009 12:29 AM PDT
 At Best Buy’s Zune HD preview today a certain Matthew Arkin on Qik was able to shoot footage of the “Apps” item that resides within the “Marketplace” section on the device. It’s still incredibly unclear what Microsoft’s plans are for that functionality — they’ve long admitted its existence, but have waffled on the name and have been reticent to show it off in meetings with us. Microsoft so far has only promised to have applications on par with the games currently available for Zune, but there’s obviously a lot of implied competition with Apple’s App Store that the word “Apps” on a touchscreen device conjures up. On video (embedded after the break) the rep is asked if there’s an SDK, and apparently Matthew got a “yes” offscreen, but we’re not really sure of the veracity of that statement, or what it means for developers at the moment — hopefully good, freedom-ey things. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in] Continue reading Zune HD’s “Apps” menu item spotted in the Marketplace, still short on details Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video Zune HD’s “Apps” menu item spotted in the Marketplace, still short on details originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 23 Aug 2009 02:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| Gateway’s 11.6-inch EC1803h CULV ultraportable surfaces in Canada Posted: 22 Aug 2009 10:02 PM PDT
 All the cool kids are building CULV-powered 11.6-inch miniature wonders, and Acer-owned Gateway is no exception. This new EC1803h unit (a rebadge of sorts of Acer’s Timeline 1810T) just popped up in Canada, and has a lot in common with Gateway’s LT2000 netbooks — though somehow knowing there’s a “real” processor underneath makes it seem just a bit more sexy. Unfortunately, the $600 Canadian (about $550 US) pricetag isn’t quite as grand as the $400ish CULV laptops that Acer and Dell have been showing, but it’s hard to fault the 3GB of RAM, 6 cell standard battery and 250GB hard drive. No word on when this will head to the States. Filed under: Laptops Gateway’s 11.6-inch EC1803h CULV ultraportable surfaces in Canada originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 23 Aug 2009 00:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| Dallas Cowboys HD scoreboard hanging too low? Posted: 22 Aug 2009 07:50 PM PDT
 It’s not necessarily on the level of Yankee Stadium’s jetstream, but the new Dallas Cowboys stadium has its own problems. The massive HDTV strung up over the field was hit by a punt during the first NFL game played there last night. So far, by the rules that will result in a do-over, while owner Jerry Jones says there are no plans to move the screen and he doubts anyone will hit it during the regular season. Check the video evidence embedded after the break, somehow we doubt this is the last time this happens. Continue reading Dallas Cowboys HD scoreboard hanging too low? Filed under: HDTV Dallas Cowboys HD scoreboard hanging too low? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 22 Aug 2009 21:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| Posted: 22 Aug 2009 06:34 PM PDT
I’d remark upon the sheer chutzpah of El Diablo, and his glaring hypocrisy in funding a law school to investigate his sworn enemy’s practices. An investigation which, thanks to his involvement, now reeks of self-interest. Self-interest and sulphur. But this isn’t a column about religious affairs, so I’m not going to discuss that. Instead, as this is a column (broadly) about technology, I’ll confine myself to the entirely unrelated news that Microsoft is joining a coalition to oppose Google’s settlement with the US publishing industry over Book Search. I’ll also touch on the totally unanalogous fact that they’re funding a New York Law School investigation into their biggest rival’s anti-competitive behaviour. Avid TechCrunch readers would be forgiven for having missed this latest development in the Google Book Search saga. After all, in recent weeks this once-fiercely bipartisan publication has thrust itself headlong into an orgy of Google adulation – a veritable golden shower of fanboyism – apparently triggered by Arrington’s discovery that his Android phone is a bit better than the iPhone. Nary a day goes by without the Dear Leader splurging more praise over his precious new handset and the undeniably paradigm-shifting fact that it allows him to use Google Voice. In that context, writing a negative story about anything happening in Mountain View might be considered at best inadvisable, at worst sacrilegious. But as usual I’m not afraid to be the voice in the wilderness. To risk ostracism by asking the questions that need asking: namely, doesn’t Microsoft actually have a point? I mean, where the hell does Google get off criticising Apple for anti-competitive practices when they’re about to be investigated by the Department of Justice for the exact same thing? Some background, if you need it. Back in 2005, the US book industry – as represented mainly by The Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers – launched a class-action suit against Google over the Search God’s plans to scan the world’s books and make them searchable through Google Books. Late last year, after millions of dollars in lawyers fees had changed hands, a settlement was agreed between the parties. Much of it was uncontroversial – a win-win, even: Google would pay a token $60 scanning fee to authors of in-copyright (US) works in return for being allowed to display short extracts of the books as part of their search results. For out-of-print books, users could also pay to download digital copies of the entire work, with a reasonably decent commission being paid to the publisher or author for each download. For in-print books, users would be referred to online retailers or libraries to buy or rent. So far, so fair. But one aspect of the settlement wasn’t so uncontroversial, and that was the issue of so-called ‘orphan works’ – books which are still in copyright but where the identity of the copyright owner is, for one reason or another, unclear. As part of the settlement, the book industry agreed that, with certain restrictions, Google could scan orphan works without being held liable for breach of copyright claims if the rights owner subsequently came forward. In return Google agreed to create an independent (and open to all) rights registry letting authors of orphaned stake their copyright claim. At first glance, the deal over orphaned works seems as reasonable as the rest of the settlement – these are books for which no-one is being paid and which otherwise would be hidden away in libraries and second hand bookstores. But still Google’s competitors are crying foul. The Internet Archive is particularly annoyed, arguing that they too are scanning millions of books for the public good, but without any blanket copyright protection for orphaned works. And so, through a group they call Open Content Alliance, they hope to pressure the Department of Justice to extend the terms of the settlement to everyone, not just Google. For the other companies joining the Alliance – including Microsoft, Yahoo and Amazon – there are more obvious and nakedly commercial reasons to oppose the settlement. But that doesn’t make their objections less valid. Back in April, Erick Schonfeld wrote a passionate – and compelling – argument for the immunity to apply to everyone so that Google wouldn’t have a monopoly position where they could effectively charge whatever they like for downloading digital copies of orphaned works. So, yeah, Google love-in be damned – let’s ask the tough quesions. If Google really does care about making the world’s information free, surely bringing rivals into the orphaned works party is the very least they can do? Whatever happened to ‘don’t be evil’? Yeah. No. Erick may be dead right in demanding the orphans be freed, but the Open Content Alliance is dead wrong in both their method and motives for making that happen. Let’s take a quick look at some of the loudest Alliance members, shall we? First there’s Microsoft – the kings of the anti-trust violation, the monarchs of monopoly. This is a company that gave the Internet Archive ten million dollars to scan books, only to pull the plug when they realised that they couldn’t make any money from their own book search service. The truth is, Microsoft couldn’t give a damn about making information free – remember Encarta? -but they’ll stop at nothing to prevent Google from succeeding where they failed. If Google Genocide launched tomorrow, you can be sure there’d be a lawyer from Redmond whining to a judge that they should be allowed a piece of the action. At least Amazon wears its biases on its sleeve – in March, Google signed a deal with Sony to put 500,000 public domain titles, scanned by the former, on to the latter’s e-reader device. At a stroke, Sony’s library of ebooks overtook Amazon’s (then) 250,000-strong database. And unlike Sony, which uses the open ePub standard for its titles, Amazon still insists on using its own ridiculous proprietary format. If they really were serious about making books more widely available, they could start by fixing the crappy PDF support for the Kindle. And then there’s Yahoo. Poor old bandwagon-jumping Yahoo. Nothing to see here; let’s move on. And yet if you look past the most vocal members of the Alliance, there are countless member organisations with bags of credibility, including thousands of libraries and universities. And there’s the Internet Archive itself, and their legal expert, Gary Reback. Both boast solid credentials – the Internet Archive has worked tirelessly, and non-commercially, to digitise out-of-copyright books, while Reback is probably the valley’s most high-profile anti-monopoly activist. (If Reback’s name sounds familiar it’s because in the 90s he was instrumental in persuading the DoJ to investigate Microsoft for anti-trust violations – and also because in a recent interview with Michael Arrington he said that, he doesn’t think Microsoft should have been split in two because the investigation itself was enough to make the company change its ways. Apparently in Reback welcoming Microsoft into the Alliance, the enemy of his enemy is now his friend.) All of which leads me to the real question that needs to be asked this week: what on earth are the Internet Archive and Gary Reback and the libraries, universities and other legitimate members of the Open Content Alliance thinking? The stated aims of the Alliance – to ‘build a permanent archive of multilingual digitized text and multimedia material’ – are solid, and their position that Google’s legal immunity over orphaned works should be extended to all is laudable. But by palling around with anti-trust terrorists, self-interested champions of DRM and conflict-funded law schools, they’re undermining all of that by making themselves look like corporate shills. If I were the Alliance’s legal advisor, I’d recommend that they leave the anti-trust nonsense to Google’s conflicted rivals and instead focus their efforts on lobbying for a change to the US Copyright Act. Google has already said that they would support a change in the law to shore up the status of their searchable rights registry and to protect all users of unregistered orphan works from breach of copyright claims. The Alliance should be working with Google to make that change happen – and that includes Amazon who really has no business siding with a bunch of sour-grapes-fuelled anti-trust cheerleaders. Beyond that, if I were advising the Alliance, I’d tell them to shut up about extending the settlement to all comers. Google has spent millions of dollars being forced into the deal they now have with publishers and it’s frankly ludicrous to expect them to share those hard-fought spoils with their biggest competitors. Google Books may be a commercial enterprise, and it may be establishing a position where it can dictate terms to authors and publishers. But it also happens to be the best book search product the world has ever seen. Really, it’s incredible. And if the likes of Amazon and the Internet Archive started working with it rather than against it, it could also be the answer to rewarding book authors in a digital age, tidying up the mess of orphaned works, making books accessible to a new generation of readers and – hell – shifting a few million more e-books and e-book readers. And with a change in the law to allow everyone to exploit orphaned works, many of the anti-trust issues that Reback hates so much would vanish too. That really would be a win-win. But of course I’m not anyone’s legal advisor; I’m just a guy who writes a technology column for money. And, as I may have mentioned before, an author. And a former co-founder of a publishing company. I mean, really this isn’t my field. I’m just glad that once again Google is in the right, and their rivals are in the wrong. The TechCrunch/Google circle jerk can continue for another week. Awesome. Someone pass me the Gool-aid. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 View original post here:
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| After bigger, thinner and brighter, Samsung planning even faster LCDs for IFA Posted: 22 Aug 2009 05:49 PM PDT
 The jury is still out on whether 200 / 240hz motion technology (last year’s prototype pictured above) provided an appreciable difference but that won’t stop Samsung from bringing 400 / 480hz (PAL / NTSC standards) LCD HDTVs to IFA 2009 next month. This is the second time we’ve heard rumors of a spec bump in motion technology, using black frame insertion instead of more complicated (& expensive) tech to create new frames from existing ones. LG has already demo’d its 480hz LCDs and the two will surely race to get a bigger number on store shelves, but we’ll need an eye-on before determining if it’s an upgrade worth waiting for. [Via GadgetCrave] After bigger, thinner and brighter, Samsung planning even faster LCDs for IFA originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 22 Aug 2009 19:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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| Posted: 22 Aug 2009 05:08 PM PDT
 File this under: creative gadget ideas. These tangle-proof headphones basically has wires that snap together when not in use. No word yet on if this concept will go into production. Video after the break.
[via Gizmodo] Go here to see the original:
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| Wolfenstein – Xbox 360 vs PS3 Graphics Comparison Posted: 22 Aug 2009 05:07 PM PDT
 It’s that time again, time for another GT graphics comparison. In this featurette, they pit the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of Wolfenstein against each other. Continue reading for the video. Read the original here:
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| Posted: 22 Aug 2009 05:06 PM PDT
 The Star Wars Force Trainer from ThinkGeek comes with a headset that “actually measures your brainwaves – brainwaves you will learn how to control.” Available now, priced at $119.99. Video after the break.
[via ThinkGeek] Read the rest here:
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If this were a column about religious affairs, I would undoubtedly focus this week on the shocking news that Beelzebub himself has joined a coalition opposing child abuse in the Catholic church.
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