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Feeling the pains of your monthly utilities a bit more in these troubled economic times? You might want to think about switching off your gaming system every so often. According to a new study issued by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Americans are taking a huge energy hit from consoles that are left on while not in use.

“If you leave your Xbox 360 or Sony Play Station 3 on all the time, you can cut your electric bill by as much as $100 a year simply by turning it off when you are finished playing,” said NRDC’s Noah Horowitz. “With so many struggling in today’s economy-it’s important to realize there are simple steps gamers can take to lower their energy costs. And if manufacturers make future systems more energy efficient, they’ll be doing the right thing for consumers’ pockets, for our clean energy future, and for the environment.”

According to the organization, power saving features implemented by the big three–Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft–could save consumers some $1 billion a year, reducing greenhouse pollution by a rate equivalent to the yearly output of all the cars in San Jose, California.

Original post by Brian Heater

Filed under: Portable Audio

If Lala.com has its way, the Web song will do to the MP3 file what the MP3 file did to the CD. The maverick music website, which began as a CD trading site and moved into Internet radio, announced an ambitious plan last year to license the catalogs of the four major music labels as well as those of many independents. It would provide unlimited listening to its members in the hopes of stimulating buying. Listeners would pay only when they wanted to transfer music to their iPods; Lala had even developed a way — since abandoned — to transfer music directly to Apple’s portable player from its website… circumventing iTunes.

Lala eventually got its licenses. But somewhere along the way, the promise of free unlimited listening proved too good to be true, How it now works is that any song you don’t have on your local PC but which Lala has made available online in its clean, ad-free user interface can be listened to for free, but only once, after which it must be purchased. One option for purchasing is the the “web song,” which is essentially access rights to a track that you can stream indefinitely, but cannot download.

The benefit, in addition to not having to manage a library of files, is the price — a mere 10 cents per song or even less when bought as part of an album. And in a nod toward its original philosophy of encouraging “try before you buy”, Lala will credit the price of the web song toward the purchase of the MP3 file. Purchased MP3 files are then added to your iTunes library just as they are when music is purchased from the Amazon MP3 store. But even tough they can′t be downloaded, web songs will have plenty of company with your other tunes.

Continue reading Switched On: Lala sells access to a song for a song

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Original post by Ross Rubin

I just queried Flickr for pictures of the moon and got 1,110,995 hits. OK–some of those were probably pictures of mooning but the vast majority were the Earth’s favorite satellite. It’s a right-of-passage for new DSLR owners to go out at night, point their camera skyward and get a (usually not great) photo. Here are some ideas so you can impress friends and neighbors.

Obviously, it will help to know when the Moon is up and its current phase. The Moon is not in sync with our night. It’s often up while the Sun is and below the horizon when you’d expect it to be up. Some days have no moonrise, others no moonset. You can get a year’s worth of Moon times from the US Naval Observatory. Unlike sunrise and sunset charts, you′ll need a new one every year. You can find the Moon’s phase in picture form here.

Our mind is good at getting our eyes to concentrate on a small object like the Moon in the sky. Your camera–not so much. You’ll want to use as long a zoom lens as you can. As your lens gets bigger so will the Moon and so will shake! Long lenses need fast shutter speeds. A tripod is helpful but not mandatory. The rule of thumb is “1/focal length” for hand held photography. If you’ve got a 300mm lens, you’ll have to shoot at 1/300 second or faster. If your lens has a 1.6 crop factor you’ll want something closer to 1/500 second with that same 300mm lens!

Luckily, the Moon is a point of bright light. I went back to Flickr and found a very nice handheld lunar image taken with a 400mm lens at 1/400 second, ISO 100, f/7.1. By the way, a quarter moon only has around 10% of the light and you’ll have to open up your lens or slow down your shutter speed to accommodate the change.

Over at Digital Photography School they recommend timing your moon shots so you get help from the Sun!

“The ideal time to capture the moon near the horizon is when you can still see the horizon. If you were to capture the moon long after the sun has set, say 3 hours, the foreground subject matter will not be illuminated and may not show well in the image. Or if the sky is already black, the moon will show as just a white blur if you attempt to brighten foreground objects.”

Like so many other subjects the Moon looks best when framed with other objects. It could be a nice clouds formation, trees or even a city’s skyline. Hey, it’s the digital age–shoot away and experiment. Bracket your shots using a variety of shutter, aperture and ISO settings. You’ll throw most away, but that won′t matter if there’s one keeper.

(Photo: Noche de luna llena - Full moon night by *L*U*Z*A* used under a Creative Commons license)

Original post by Geoff Fox

Last month, I featured 10 Gadgets that Look Good Enough to Eat on PCMag.com, including the Croissant Wrist Rest and the Hamburger Phone. Well, there’s another tasty gadget that I need to add to that list: the USB Cabbage Flash Drive ($28) from USB Brando.

You can store 4GB of data on this fiber-licious USB 2.0 drive, and it supports Windows, Mac, and Linux. It’s the perfect gift for next St. Patrick′s Day!

Original post by Jen the Weird Hunter

Because conventional lie detector test (the polygraph) is not really a hundred percent reliable, alternative lie detectors have been developed over time. EEGs and fMRIs can measure brain activity and seem to have good potential. However, EEGs provide low resolution images and fMRIs are extremely expensive. Scott Bunce from the Drexel University’s College of Medicine in Philadelphia turned to infrared rays and thought it a better alternative to the polygraph test.

Bunce’s model is to emit near-infrared light through the skull into the brain using a special headband designed just for the purpose. The aim is to measure brain activity by monitoring how much light is reflected back. According to NewScientist, the light than bounces back depends upon the blood oxygen levels, which are indicative of brain activity. Unfortunately, it’s not even known yet whether brain activity could be a measure of deception, so this gadget might not even be of use at all, if ever.

Check out the infrared lie detector headband patent application

Original post by Mariella Moon

Filed under: Peripherals

Yeah, so we might have forced Microsoft’s hand into announcing the fall Zune lineup a day early, but nothing can upstage the pure excitement of the Say Goodbye to Laser campaign — awww yeah, the BlueTrack mice are official today. The new tracking tech uses a (surprise!) blue beam and wide-angle “specular optics architecture” to work on a wider range of surfaces than traditional optical or laser mice, including granite, marble, and even carpet. The new tech will debut in two new mice: a revised wireless Microsoft Explorer Mouse and that Microsoft Explorer Mini Mouse that we’d already spotted. Both will be available at Best Buy in November for $99 and $79, respectively. Full PR after the break.

Continue reading Microsoft’s BlueTrack mice are here — laser bids a tearful goodbye

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Original post by Nilay Patel

Filed under: Gaming

Fear not, UK friends, you will be getting the eye-pleasing, battery-draining PSP-3000 just like everyone else, but it seems you won’t be getting quite as many bundle options as others in Europe. According to GamesIndustry.biz, the silver PSP-3000 bundle with Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters and the black PSP-3000 bundle with a 4GB Memory Stick won’t be making it to the UK, at least initially, leaving you with only the Go! communication, FIFA, Harry Potter, and Buzz! Master Quiz bundles to choose from. That, as you may have noticed, doesn’t include a stand-alone PSP-3000 option, but Sony assures us that’ll be arriving as well sometime after the bundles are released.

[Via PSP Fanboy]

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Original post by Donald Melanson

Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds

Continue reading Unspectacular PSP-3001 outed by the FCC

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Original post by Thomas Ricker

Filed under: Gaming, GPS

Only John Koller knows how serious John Koller, Sony’s senior marketing manager for PSP, was when mentioning that GPS-enabled games could eventually hit the PSP, but he definitely threw it out there. Speaking about the forthcoming GPS add-on for the PlayStation Portable, Koller stated that said module “changes the dynamics of GPS but also changes the way developers think about games on PSP, because you can start integrating GPS into it.” He continued on by mentioning that Sony’s own first-party studios were “already looking at a number of things [involving GPS in games],” and concluded by asserting that a GPS game could land on the system as early as next year. Considering just how long we′ve been waiting for the add-on, we′re not holding our breath on the titles.

[Via PSP Fanboy]

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Gaming

There may not have been any word of a new PSP out of ʵ as some had suspected, but it looks Sony may have a bit of a late surprise for us, at least if these tantalizing pics from PSPChina are to be believed. Apparently, this new PSP-3000 model remains mostly unchanged from the current PSP-2000, with the notable addition of a built-in microphone and a somewhat less notable PlayStation button in place of the usual Home button. As you can see in the picture after the break, the signature steel ring on the back of the PSP also appears to have been trimmed a bit (there’s a pic of the inside of the case as well, for the curious). Not exactly the DS Lite sort of upgrade that’d make everyone ditch their old PSPs to be sure but, as we’ve seen with the PSP-2000, it would be about par for the course for Sony.

[Via Joystiq, Khattab]

Continue reading Sony said to be prepping PSP-3000 with built-in mic

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Original post by Donald Melanson

I never thought there’d come a time when lighting up a cigarette would mean looking for an outlet rather than a lighter. Electronic cigarettes aren’t anything new though–remember Crown7’s battery-operated cigarettes? The Gamucci Micro Electronic Cigarette basically works the way as the Crown7 cigarettes do. To provide an even closer semblance to reality, Gamucci looks the same as ordinary cigarettes–the tip lights up too. Inside the stick is a chamber housing the cartridge which contains liquid, part of which is nicotine. When you take a drag at the e-cigarette, an atomizing chamber vaporizes the liquid to give users that “nicotine hit.”

Gamucci claims that nicotine is the only ingredient, so you get to enjoy smoking sans the carcinogens. You can also supposedly use it in non-smoking areas as it does not have fire and only produces vapor, not smoke and hence, is not a cigarette. The electronic cigarette is powered with a 3.7 volt battery, a single charge of which could last the whole day. The cartridges loaded into the electronic cigarettes could be “low” with only 6mg of nicotine, “medium” with 11mg, or “high” with 16mg. You can pick a package of the Gamucci Micro Electronic Cigarette up in I Want One of Those for $89.91 which includes two sticks, 5 “high” cartridges, and the charger, of course. You can also pick up a pack of 5 cartridges from the Gamucci web site for $14. A single cartridge, by the way, is equivalent to 20 normal cigarettes. Oh, and if you’re interested in puffing flavored smoke, Gamucci is also planning to release electronic cigarettes in Apple, Chocolate, Cherry, Mint, and Coffee variations.

Original post by Mariella Moon

Microsoft is giving up on the SPOT watch which leverages MSN Direct (FM frequency transmission) to send stock quotes, news, and even sync your Outlook calendar with your watch.

The only person who I know owns one is Rich Tehrani, who reviewed one here. He will be so upset to hear the news. Well, least his wrist will be 3 pounds lighter so his typing should improve.

You know what the problem was? They didn’t have VoIP on the watch. Now if you could talk to your watch - ala Dick Tracey (see image) then this product may have succeeded. Then again, maybe not…

Via Engadget
Watch Image Top - Credit to Engadget

Tags: Dick Tracey, Engadget, Rich Tehrani, SPOT watch, watch, watches

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Original post by nafiz

Filed under: Wearables

One of the few dozen active-duty astronauts in the US space program? Inquire within about Seiko’s Spring Drive Spacewalk watch, custom-designed for game god and soon-to-be ISS resident Richard Garriott. Not a member of NASA? Who cares, just how many watches do you own that could withstand direct exposure to the heatless vacuum that is space (should you ever find yourself in it)? Exactly. Only a hundred are being made though, so be ready to spring when Seiko tags this series with a price and puts it on sale.

[Via Watch Report]

 

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Original post by Ryan Block

Filed under: Desktops

We don′t know if this guy got his box running GLaDOS, but it sure as hell looks like standard issue Aperture Science, if you ask us. We’d like to see it running Portal though — only that would be recursive enough for our tastes.

[Thanks, Nick]

Continue reading Make your own Aperture Science PC workstation

 

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Original post by Ryan Block

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

That right kids, it’s everyone’s wildest dream come to fruition: Vista S̡ is now officially available for your beta testing pleasure. According to a report from Geekzone in New Zealand, the update is now making its way into the hands of beta testers, with a broad rollout planned sometime in March. Apparently, those desperate to get with the newness will have to use a standalone installer as opposed to the updater, and there are some minor issues with driver compatibility — but we’re pretty sure that won’t stop you from going to town on this baby. Get it now if you′re a beta tester… or have a BitTorrent client.

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Original post by Joshua Topolsky