Developages - Development and Technology Blog

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment, Storage

While Sony and others compete with Blu-ray burners of a paltry 8x, Sanyo’s looking ahead with a new laser that could enable write speeds of up to 12x. More impressively, the 450 milliwatt diode (twice that of current burners) could read and write through four 25GB layers. If you’re not so good at math (it’s okay, we had to break out the calculator) that means discs of up to 100GB burned in 10 minutes or less! But don’t go running down to your local Blu-ray emporium looking for double-digit speed drives just yet new standards will be needed for discs that big and drives that fast, which could mean a year or two before production begins. If speculation of Blu-ray’s impending demise is to be believed, that may be cutting things a bit close.

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Original post by Tim Stevens

Filed under: Cellphones

We might be getting the CDMA BlackBerry Storm 9530 with GSM worldphone abilities on Verizon here in the States, but the rest of the world doesn′t need both of those radios, and now we have confirmation of the GSM-only BlackBerry 9500 (aka the BlackBerry Thunder) — check out this RIM data sheet that just surfaced. Specs are basically the same as the Storm 9530: quad-band GSM, tri-band HSDPA, 1GB of flash with 192MB of RAM, 3.2 megapixel cam with video, flash and image stabilization, A-GPS, and that click-touchscreen. No details on pricing or release date, but we’d guess it’ll hit along with the Storm 9530 sometime around November 1st.

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Original post by Nilay Patel

Filed under: Cellphones

It was redirected for most the of the day, but Verizon’s BlackBerry Storm page just went live, hopefully meaning we’ll be see RIM’s first touchscreen phone make its debut sometime soon. All you can do at the moment is sign up for an email alert, but we’ve got you covered with the internal promo video, box art, talking points, and even a ninja-themed hands-on — yeah, let’s get this released, guys.

[Thanks, Nick]

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Original post by Nilay Patel

Filed under: Cellphones

Yep, that’s the BlackBerry Storm, with Verizon branding and everything — too bad there isn’t a shot of the pricetag or release date. Soon, please? Check two more at the read link.

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Original post by Nilay Patel

Filed under: Cellphones

We’re still waiting on Verizon’s official launch of the Blackberry Storm, but the anticipation is running high, especially since we just received a list of specs and talking points distributed to store reps about RIM’s first touchscreen phone. As expected, the 9530 Storm will feature that controversial “click” touchscreen with built-in tactile feedback, quad-band GSM connectivity for global use in addition to EV-DO, visual voicemail, a 3.2 megapixel camera with video, and a full HTML browser. Sadly, there’s no pricing information or specific release date, but we’ve got a feeling we’ll get those soon — stay tuned.

[Thanks, HTCKid]

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Original post by Nilay Patel

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Casio’s Exilim EX-Z200, which broke cover at CES earlier this year, has been taken in to review by the shutterbugs over at PhotographyBLOG. Sporting a 10-megapixel sensor, 4x optical zoom and a 28-millimeter wide-angle lens, this pocket-friendly point-and-shoot proved to be a love / hate affair in its finest form. Despite being loaded with features and relatively easy to operate, the Z200 still delivered subpar image quality; more specifically, noise and smearing of fine details were quite evident even at ISO 200, purple fringing was obvious in high-contrast scenes and the painfully slow shutter speed left critics woefully underwhelmed. Overall, the digicam seemed to stumble in the areas that matter most, and with the plethora of alternatives out there, it sounds as if your hard-earned dollars could be better used elsewhere.

[Thanks, Mark]

 

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

While browsing the ‘net recently, we came across three separate DIY / mod articles (all stemming from our friends at Make) related to musical instruments, and realized that if combined… it’s almost a band (or at least the White Stripes). The first is a step-by-step guide to making your own Rock Band-esque drum triggers that can interface with your PC, allowing you to perform freestyle — though you can still bang away at games with them. The second experiment lets you add USB to a standard electric guitar, thus enabling you to record directly out of your Firebird (or other axe) straight to disk, reducing your time in the studio and freeing up your schedule for rehab. Finally, if you’ve got a USB guitar, you’ll probably want some effects as well — we suggest making them yourself using the handy kits in the link below. Okay, so it’s not technically a band quite yet, but with a little elbow grease, questionable hairstyles, and a cash-embezzling manager, you’ll be on your way to a Behind the Music (or passing reference on Pitchfork) in no time.

[Via Make, Make, and Make]

Read - Electronic Drum Set with Controller
Read - How to Build a USB Guitar
Read - Build your own effects pedal

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Original post by Joshua Topolsky

Filed under: Cellphones

It’s difficult to tell if this is just a little fear-mongering, or cause for real concern, but it looks like there’s another iPhone / touch exploit out there lurking on the unseen horizons of the device’s browsers. According to reports, a memory exploit — similar to the previously-patched TIFF exploit — has been discovered which affects units with firmware 1.0.2 all the way up to 1.1.3, thus carrying over to new 16GB iPhones and 32GB touches. Apparently, all you have to do is browse over to a site containing the malicious code, and it triggers a memory-exhausting script which causes the phone or iPod to crash. At this point, it doesn’t appear to be anything more than a nuisance which can be easily circumvented by disabling JavaScript for Safari, though that hardly qualifies as a fix. To date, Apple hasn’t issued a patch for the problem, but keep in mind it’s only been a known issue since January 24th.

[Via iPhone World]

 

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Original post by Joshua Topolsky

Filed under: Cellphones, Gaming

That didn’t take long. A mere day after the release of Nokia’s N-Gage First Access gaming preview exclusively to N81 users, the app has been cracked open to work with any N-series device with enough horsepower. The hack was performed by Nokia regular P@sco, and comes in a convenient downloadable form, or an only slightly involved guide to hacking the app yourself. No rocket science here, and while we’re sure Nokia could easily fight back, what we’ve really got to ask ourselves is why didn′t Nokia just open it to everyone in the first place?

[Thanks, Michael J.]

 

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Original post by Paul Miller

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Attention voters: if you’re casting your ballot for a special someone on this Super Duper Tuesday, you might want to hear what the folks over at Common Cause have to say. The nonpartisan, nonprofit voting machine watchdog wants you to know that six out of the 24 states involved in the presidential primaries today are using voting machines that are at “high risk” for malfunction or tampering. In all, 17 states have some risk factor — based on the advocacy group’s rating system — though the machines in Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, New Jersey, New York, and Tennessee are the most likely to give the votes to Darth Vader, Dr. Evil, or Lord Voldemort. You have been warned.

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Original post by Joshua Topolsky

Filed under: Gaming, Robots

Sure, we’ve seen DS bots before, but some youngsters in France have taken the whole control issue to the “next level.” Apparently, six engineering students decided to pull a fast one on a Pekee Robot (an open, modular, Roomba-like bot) which was collecting dust, and mainline DS controls into its tiny brain. The end result is a multi-use control rig run based entirely on Nintendo’s portable console, offering wireless command of the bot with the D-pad, touchscreen, motion sensors, and stylus strokes, as well as a target mode modeled after Super Mario 64 DS, and voice commands via the system’s mic. You can watch the video after the break to see the little guy in action, but you might want to avert your gaze when he becomes self-aware, determines humans are inefficient, and goes on a kill-crazy rampage.

[Via DS Fanboy]

Continue reading DS-controlled robot works six different ways

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Original post by Joshua Topolsky

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Sure, this little hack requires more than basic soldering skills and you’ll need an actual synth for sound output, but we’ve always been intrigued by the Stylophone David Bowie used to write songs on, and now we can build one. The 29-note “keyboard″ is really just an exposed circuit trace, and completing a circuit by touching the metal stylus to one of the keys sends voltage to your synth and lets you get glam in the comfort of your own home. Complete instructions at the read link, and a video of Bowie in action after the break (it’s at the very end).

[Via MAKE]

Continue reading Build your own Stylophone, be slightly more like David Bowie

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Original post by Nilay Patel

Filed under: Peripherals

If you’ve never tracked down just the right desktop widget to display your PC vitals, perhaps analog gauges are your last hope at harmony with processor utilization. DIY Life has a nice how-to on how to hack your very own old-school gauges to work off of USB and, you know, gauge stuff. Unfortunately, the hack is pretty involved — we set ten of our finest interns to the task, and only three of them made it back with all their appendages intact — but don’t let that frighten you too much, our interns are a rowdy lot.

 

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Original post by Paul Miller

Filed under: Gaming, Laptops

We think it’s possible that the time has come to admit that Ben Heck (aka Benjamin Heckendorn) has officially taken it to the limit, put the pedal to the metal, and a large number of other cliches that suggest something has been pushed just about as far as you can take it. That’s right folks — it’s the Xbox 360 Elite laptop. We′re not even going to try and pretend to understand how an individual could go about creating this kind of extreme mod to the Microsoft console — needless to say that if there was one man who could do it, Ben is that guy. Luckily for us lay-people, he’s included a graphic breakdown of just about every step on the road to a portable Xbox 360, replete will all the case cracking, innards opening, wire splaying photos you could possibly want or need. Sorry NEStari and Atari 800 laptop — there’s a new boss in town.

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Original post by Joshua Topolsky

Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

For Rock Band players that have also had some experience with a bona fide six-string, getting used to that plastic strum bar can take some work. For one gamer in particular, he decided to spend that time doing something a bit more productive than getting acclimated, like adding in an actual guitar string. There’s also a switch mechanism that gets triggered by said string, which then sends an input to the game. Pretty swank, we say — check out the video for yourself after the jump!

Continue reading Rock Band mod adds actual guitar string, touch of class to axe

 

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Original post by Darren Murph