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Two new projects and five updates this first week of 2009. Now that the football season is officially over for me and the new year is here, I want to lay out some goals for this year...on this blog anyway. Firstly, I do intend to continue doing these updates but my goal is to come up with at least one other post per week this year (many weeks in 2008, I only posted this update). Secondly, I am going to fix the open-source list in IE and finally update the project list that has been languishing f

Apple has negotiated deals that will finally enable iTunes to offer songs free of copy protection software from the three largest music labels, according to sources and reports from people close to the negotiations. In exchange, Apple has agreed to become more flexible on pricing as well (about time for this too). Yes! No more [...]

Okay, yes, we were mad skeptical that the Agora would ever see the light of day, and you know what? This is one situation where we're absolutely delighted to be proven wrong. Kogan's homegrown Android handset just got pictured in the wild -- the first time we've seen anything but a render -- on its way to a supposed CES debut. Rest assured: if it's really going to be meandering around Vegas this week, we will hunt it down.

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Android-powered Kogan Agora meets Mr. Blurrycam on way to CES debut originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Jan 2009 22:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Follow these 2 steps:1. MPEG2 plugin:copy to the 'Plugins32' folder located in the VirtualDub folder (create the folder if it does not exist)..http://home.comcast.net/~fcchandler/Plugins/MPEG2/index.html2. AC3 codec:install in the system by right clicking the .inf file and choose 'install'.http://home.comcast.net/~fcchandler/AC3ACM/index.htmlmore info:http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/667709- Santhosh Babu D - URL: http://sanbabu.blogspot.com/ - Project Manager : www.decatrend.com

Rather than simply adding a new capacity option or throwing another adjective on the end (i.e. Ultra, Xtreme, Gnarly, etc.), SanDisk is actually launching something in the flash drive sector that's worth paying attention to. The Ultra USB Backup is hailed as the planet's first USB key with simple backup software activation at the touch of a button, and with capacities up to 64GB, we'd say this is a pretty decent option for keeping your digital paraphernalia backed up sans an external HDD. In related news, the outfit has redesigned the long-standing Cruzer to fall more in line with today's trends, effectively stripping the retro pastel hues and adding in "iconic new design language developed by global innovation firm frog design." The new bunch is expected in stores this April, with prices ranging from $24.99 to $99.99 for the Cruzer and $39.99 to $199.99 for the Ultra Backup. Full release is after the break.

Continue reading SanDisk showcases new Ultra Backup / Cruzer USB flash drives

Filed under: CES, Storage

SanDisk showcases new Ultra Backup / Cruzer USB flash drives originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Jan 2009 22:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The notoriously-difficult PSP-3000 model (also known as PSP Brite) has finally been hacked, this time without the need for a downgrader tool. MaTiAz's "The Sparta!!!" exploit was allegedly discovered after overwriting the player's name in a GripShift save file with "this is spartaaaaa..." -- with 57 a's tacked onto the end -- and is now available for download along with a new SDK. It's said to work with PSP firmware versions 1.52 through the current 5.02. The Hello World proof of concept video is after the break. Welcome to the homebrew community, Brite: we've been expecting you.

[Via DCEmu]

Continue reading PSP-3000 finally screams 'Hello World,' homebrew to assuredly follow

Filed under: Gaming

PSP-3000 finally screams 'Hello World,' homebrew to assuredly follow originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Jan 2009 22:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In the first part of Using Metro, I reviewed the Service and Gateway portion of the Metro security package. In this post, I'll describe the core Metro Decorator and Validator as well as the jQuery plugin I use for client side validation. I'll use the loginUser() method from the concrete SecurityService to demonstrate the interaction between Service, Business Object and Gateway. Here is the complete code for the method. <cffunction name="loginUser" access="public" output="false" returntype="any"> <cfset var user = new("User") /> <cfset var result = getTransientFactory().create("Result")> <cfset var errors = StructNew()> <cfset result.setErrors(user.populate(argumentCollection=arguments))> <cfif (result.getSuccess())> <cfset result.setErrors(user.validate("login"))> <cfif (result.getSuccess())> <cfset user

A couple weeks ago a friend at the First Parish Photography Club suggested the idea of photographing an outdoor, candlelight service on Christmas Eve in Concord, Massachusetts. As a recent graduate of the Professional Digital Photography program at... [More]

Two new projects and five updates this first week of 2009. Now that the football season is officially over for me and the new year is here, I want to lay out some goals for this year...on this blog anyway. Firstly, I do intend to continue doing these updates but my goal is to come up with at least one other post per week this year (many weeks in 2008, I only posted this update). Secondly, I am going to fix the open-source list in IE and finally update the project list that has been languishing for far too long.

Getting bass out of a soundbar that conveys proper theater impact is asking for a bit much, so Polk Audio has wisely chosen to add a standalone subwoofer and name the package the SurroundBar SDA Instant Home Theater (IHT). Of course, soundbar shoppers are likely concerned about stringing wires across the living room floor, ceiling, or what have you, so Polk has added a wireless connection between the SurroundBar and the 6.5-inch subwoofer. Nice and tidy, and it'll ship this month for a buck under $600.

Filed under: CES, Home Entertainment

Polk adds some oomph to its SurroundBar SDA Instant Home Theater originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I never really realized how nuch I hated keybroads untill I saw this thing.

Sent from my MacBook Wheel

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Filed under: Laptops

MacBook Wheel revealed by the Onion News Network originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I posted earlier today that it was back to work day after a long restful two weeks of lazing around. I discovered when I got to work that I was far from the only one who had the same sort of winter break. As my friend Mark said, "It's the whole reason we live here. This beautiful winter weather. Who wants to stay inside?" But on reflection I decided that I had in fact accomplished quite a bit over the last two weeks. When you count it all up, it was really quite an impressive...

Hard to believe that the original LCD2690WUXi was introduced over two years ago, but the squared version is finally getting official here at Macworld. The 26-inch MultiSync LCD2690WUXi&sup2; packs an IPS active matrix LCD and is clearly aimed at pros and pros alone; some of the super swank features include 97.8% coverage of AdobeRGB, compatibility with NEC's SpectraViewIITM color calibrator, auto luminance control for consistent brightness and color, support for 12-bit lookup tables and an ambient light sensor. Additionally, you'll notice a 1,900 x 1,200 native resolution, 1,000:1 contrast ratio, 320 nits of brightness and a trio of selectable inputs (DVI-I, DVI-D and VGA). The panel is shipping as we speak for just $1,199, which ain't bad at all for a screen of this caliber.

[Via Electronista]

Filed under: Displays

NEC debuts 26-inch LCD2690WUXi² for professionals at Macworld originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The idea of gesture-based remote control isn't new, but GestureTek has added in 3D tracking to the mix for, you guessed it -- even more expressive interaction with your TV. After all, you don't live in flatland, so why should your remote control gestures? Of course, adding in depth perception requires the use of more than one webcam, but maybe that's not a big tradeoff in our age of six and more speakers in the living room. The setup will be on display at CES (sans Xpletive), so we'll try and swing by for a, um, hands on while we puzzle over how to add voice commands to this system. Watching the big game with your buddies just might get even more entertaining yet.

Filed under: CES, Misc. Gadgets, HDTV, Home Entertainment

GestureTek brings 3D and gestures together for remote control originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hello World! It’s been sometime since my last post. It has been a very busy few months and that’s a good thing. However it’s now a new year and with it comes new opportunities, new presentations. I will have the pleasure of appearing in front of fellow developers in the next few months. I hope to [...]

Two new ones have arrived today from the labs of LaCie, and neither are destined to ever end up inside of your PC. Up first, we've got the slightly speedier d2 external DVD±RW drive with LightScribe, which toasts discs at up to 22x and connects to PCs via USB 2.0 or FireWire (400, presumably). For those in need of HDD-based storage, the glossy black Hard Disk MAX comes with a pair of 1TB drives that can be set in either a RAID 0 or RAID 1 configuration with the simple flick of a switch on the back panel. There's also a USB port on the front for additional expansion, and the USB 2.0 socket 'round back is what links it up with your computer. Both are available right now for $119.99 / $269.99, respectively.

Read - d2 external DVD burner
Read - Hard Disk MAX

Filed under: Storage

LaCie intros 22x d2 external DVD burner, 2TB Hard Disk MAX originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I finally wrapped up phase 1 of a project that I’ve been playing around with in my spare time. It’s an emulator for the TI-8X series graphing calculators from Texas Instruments written completely in ActionScript 3. Currently the emulator supports the TI-82, TI-83 and TI-85 with TI-73 and TI-86 coming soon. (TI-89 support is planned, but [...]

U.S. Internet users watched 12.7 billion online videos in November, an increase of 34 percent versus a year ago, according to ComScore data.

Team Mach-II is happy to announce the release of Mach-II 1.6.0 RC2  This is our last stop (I promise) on the road to the stable release of Mach-II 1.6.  We plan to release 1.6 as a stable before the start of February.  Development of c...

I thought some of you might appreciate a simple list of all the Flash instructional material that's available on adobe.com. There are so many different types of content, covering so many topics, in so many formats, that I thought a...