Developages - Development and Technology Blog

Something for everyone, or just me.

Nothing makes me laugh quite like my collection of t-shirts from Israel. I’m always searching for a lost shirt, one that said “The ShinBet is watching you.” in Arabic.

Another favorite is this one.

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Original post by Jason

I have three. The current DotCommer bulldog craze just never caught on with me. Having owned a number of other breeds, I really can’t imagine living with any other.

This video is pretty cute. My wife wants a tri-color like Mr. Yoda here.

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Original post by Jason

Filed under: Storage

Mere months after debuting its highly-desirable and smashingly-priced Core Series of SATA II SSDs, OCZ is back for more with the Core Series V2 of 2.5-inch drives. Sizes have been bumped to 30GB / 60GB / 120GB / 250GB, and access times are up to 170MBps read and 98MBps write. OCZ even crammed in a mini-USB port for applying future speed-enhancing firmware updates. No word on price yet, but hopefully OCZ will stay in line with its original Core lineup.

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Original post by Paul Miller

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Peripherals

We tried to take OCZ’s Neural Impulse Actuator seriously, we really did. But unable to suppress those recurring images of Geordi La Forge, we simply couldn’t help ourselves from having a laugh at this thing’s expense. Nevertheless, the way-more-solemn dudes and dudettes over at HotHardware managed to give this brain-computer interface a fair shake, and overall, it was pretty impressed. Still, the bottom line is this: “the NIA is a very unique input device and possibly the first true brain-computer interface to hit the retail market,” but it’s not “a replacement for traditional input methods.” Granted, critics did point out that it would supplement current devices quite well, but only after “slogging through” hours upon hours of training. The hardcore among us may be willing to put in the time necessary to really get a lot out of this for everyone else, just continue to point and laugh while masking your ignorance.

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds

If you just can’t get enough of what Sony Europe execs are saying, here’s another mouthful just days after hearing from David Reeves. This time we’ve got SCEE’s VP of publisher and developer relations Zeno Cola&ccedilo shouting out on the state of PSP, and overall, his comments weren’t that surprising. Most notably, he mentioned that the developer community needed to be “revitalized” so that it would get behind the PSP in a big way. When asked about the current dearth of games for the handheld, he commented that such a scenario happens “when you rely on a business model that relies on 25% games from Sony and 75% from other publishers.” He continued by stating that Sony “probably suffered” from being unable to completely recover when third-party developers refocused efforts away from the PlayStation Portable. Hungry for more? You know where to head for the full interview.

[Via GamesIndustry]

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds

Not much else to say beyond the title of this one — MWeston has recently confirmed over at the GP32X boards that Bluetooth will indeed be included on the forthcoming Pandora mega-emulator. He noted that BT was added because of an exceptional deal they landed and to “make competing devices look that much less interesting.” Right, so what exactly is this bundle of awesomeness competing against exactly?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

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Original post by Darren Murph

Just want to point you to Rich Tehrani’s interview with Digium CEO Danny Windham. He covers everything from open source to Web 2.0 & mashups. Digium is the ‘heart and soul’ of the Asterisk movement, so when their CEO speaks, I listen.

Truth be told, I haven′t listened to the podcast myself yet, so I wonder if Rich mentioned to Danny my humorous Hulk post from yesterday, which is about Digium. Well, my attempt at humor. The Hulk article explains that Asterisk/Digium is the superhero saving us from the evil proprietary PBX villains. But our superhero (the Hulk/Digium/Asterisk) may have some recent flaws that may need addressing by Digium.  Still, I have faith in Digium/Asterisk/Hulk though. The Hulk has never let me down before.

Anyway, go check out the podcast.

Tags: Asterisk, CEO, Danny Windham, Digium, interview, podcast, VoIP

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Original post by nafiz

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Considering the plethora of facilities that have opened just in the past few years to deal solely with individuals that have become undoubtedly addicted to video games, the internet and all things Hello Kitty (we jest, we jest), we’re not surprised one iota to hear that uncontrollably texting / e-mailing could soon become “classified as an official brain illness.” According to a writeup in the latest American Journal of Psychiatry, internet addiction is a common ailment “that should be added to psychiatry’s official guidebook of mental disorders.” More specifically, Dr. Jerald Block, a psychiatrist at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, even goes so far as to argue that said phenomenon (neglecting basic drives to spend more time online) be “included in the [next edition of] Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, psychiatry’s official dictionary of mental illnesses.” Until then, we wish you the best of luck convincing that creature living in your basement with a dedicated T1 line that he / she isn′t alright.

[Via textually, image courtesy of TheSkylineBand]

 

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Cellphones

We had a sneaking suspicion that the world hadn′t really come to strapping pads around lampposts in order to keep walking texters safe, and sure enough, the whole shebang was more of a stunt and less of a bona fide trial. Reportedly, only a few pads were put in place and photographed for around 36 hours — afterwards, the PR firm responsible for putting them up (118 118) simply took them back down. It seems as if the scheme was meant to “test out [the idea] and gauge people’s opinions,” according to a 118 118 spokesman, and safe to say it certainly accomplished that.

[Via textually]

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: CES, Misc. Gadgets

What are you waiting for? Go enter!

 

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Original post by Ryan Block

Filed under: CES, Features, Home Entertainment

If the idea of a receiver is just too lowbrow for you, check out Denon’s processor/amplifier separates, the AVP/POA-A1HDCI (’AVP’ for the processor, ‘POA’ for the amp). Six HDMI 1.3 inputs, two parallel HDMI outputs and Silicon Optix Realta video processing are some processor highlights; the amp packs in 10 channels at 150-watts. While you’re at it, why settle for a Blu-ray player when you can get a dedicated transport? That back panel picture of the DVD-2500BTCI is no prototype unit — all you get is a power cord, HDMI output, and RS-232. Spin those bits off the Blu-ray disc and send them on to the AVP-A1HDCI for decoding. Pricing is securely in the “if you have to ask…” category: $7k for the AVP-A1HDCI, $7k for the POA-A1HDCI and $1200 for the DVD-2500BTCI.

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Original post by Steven Kim

Filed under: Home Entertainment

Believe it or not, that thing you see above actually is a subwoofer, albeit a wee one. Tymphany’s LA𔤚 (Linear Array Transducer) deviates from the traditional cone approach and instead “displaces air using a linear array of multiple smaller diaphragms.” A pair of internal motors drive both sets of diaphragms, and the unit itself can be mounted either horizontally or vertically depending on your install needs. Most notably, this thing reportedly checks in at just 10.24- x 3.5-inches in size and weighs only 1.86-pounds, but it can somehow still handle 100-watts RMS. As you’d expect, Tymphany is aiming this unit at users with tight space requirements, and while a variety of impedance configurations are available, the standard 4-ohm dual-coil version is available now for $58.

[Via AudioJunkies]
Read - MadiSound
Read - Tymphany

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Gaming

It looks like Alienware’s decision to announce its latest laptops today was hardly an arbitrary one, as it just so happens that NVIDIA has also chosen the date to get official with its new GeForce 8800 GTX and GTS laptop GPUs, which the Alienware systems are based on. Described as the “World’s Fastest Notebook GPU,” the 8800M GTX and GTS are each largely identical, with the notable exception of 96 stream processors in the GTX model, as opposed to 64 in the GTS. Otherwise, you can expect full DirectX 10 support from each, along with NVIDIA’s PureVideo HD engine for your HD decoding needs, up to 512MB of dedicated memory, and NVIDIA’s trademark “PowerMizer technology,” which promises to “intelligently” balance battery life and performance. According to NVIDIA, in addition to Alienware, you can also expect Eurocom, Gateway, and Sager to offer laptops equipped with the GPUs in North America before too long, with a handful of other companies also set to trot out systems in other parts of the world.

[Via Laptoping]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Original post by Donald Melanson