This new Netgear router can help you do just that, converting a 3G wireless signal into WiFi your laptop can understand. Of course, it also works with traditional connections via ethernet, but where's the adventure in that?
\n\n]]>The new version of Aperture has just hit the Apple store, and it brings along with it the Faces and Places features that iPhoto users have been enjoying for some time now. Faces auto-detects who is in each photo, letting you automatically sort pictures by who's in them. Places uses geotagging to place your photos on a map based on where you took them.
\n\nWill these features be enough to get you to drop $200 on photo importing and organization software?
\n\nVia Apple
]]>So, why take existing books and truncate them? Timothy C. Moore, publisher of the FT Press, told The New York Times that it was \"a good idea to be able to provide people with shorter, more expedient, more time-sensitive\" versions of books.
\n\nFT Press's approach eats into publisher profits, as it's unlikely that someone would spring for the full book after getting the best bits. The authors of the original work, however, are entitled to royalties from the online sales.
\n\nSo what's next? Who knows: maybe in the future people will buy their favorite chapters just as you would a song instead of an album.
\n\n]]>Using sensors mounted on its top portion, the bot can detect when your beer mug is topped off with just a wave of the hand, and can roll over to your side of the bar due to a preprogrammed area map. You can see video of the Heineken Bot in action here.
\n\nVia GizmoWatch
]]>The Wall Street Journal, owned by Murdoch's News Corp, is one such news site that charges a subscription fee for access to all of its articles. The New York Times, which isn't owned by News Corp, recently announced that it would also adopt a subscriber \"pay wall\" model in 2011. It's no secret that the magazine and newspaper industry is in trouble, and pay walls are seen as one way to help stop the bleeding.
\n\nNot all outlets see adopting pay walls as the way to go. Alan Rusbridger (above, right), editor of The Guardian, recently gave a speech in which he defended the virtues of free content and relying on ad revenue. One of the big fears behind the pay wall structure is the fact that it'd turn certain readers away, which would lower readership and drive down ad revenue.
\n\nRusbridger called Murdoch out directly:
\"Rupert Murdoch, who has in his time flirted with free models and who has ruthlessly cut the price of his papers to below cost in order to win audiences or drive out competition… this same Rupert Murdoch is being very vocal in asserting that the reader must pay a proper sum for content — whether in print or digitally.\"\n\n
More than just a different way to provide content, Rusbridger sees the Internet as adding a vital layer to journalism — an interactive, evolving one — that could be damaged by forcing regular readers of a periodical to pay. Casual readers could come and go, but \"loyal\" readers, as Rusbridger describes them, would seemingly be punished.
\n\nMurdoch, in response, said that he hadn't listened to or read Rusbridger's speech but that the general idea \"sounds like BS\" to him. He didn't say \"BS\" exactly, of course. He used the version not fit to print.
\n\nSo, where do you stand? Sound off in the comments, and don't forget to hit up our poll below.
\n\nRead Rusbridger's entire speech here.
\n\n]]>After using the catch to hold our iPhone charging cable for a few days, we've given it a permanent place on our desk. We do have this suggested upgrade: The Catch's cable guide should have some kind of \"flaps\" to prevent cords from easily popping out of it. But even with that quibble, the $7 Catch has paid for itself with time saved in cancelled expeditions behind our gadget stack in search of fallen cords.
]]>You'll need more bandwidth to handle the higher resolution, probably exceeding the 7 to 10 Mbps required to stream the company's 720p HD content on the Roku box, TiVo, the Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. Let's hope Netflix has a better compression scheme up its sleeve for this 1080p trick, supported by Microsoft Silverlight 1080p streaming introduced last March.
\n\nAll that additional resolution won't mean much unless Netflix can stream more than just a measly 6% of its movies in HD, as it does now. That's lame — even Netflix's own PR flack calls it \"underwhelming.\" Beyond that, there's the problem of bandwidth-stingy Internet service providers, many of whom also sell pay-per-view movies on cable, balking at opening up their pipes for a competitor's 1080p content.
\n\nNow Netflix tells CNET the reference to 1080p streaming was a mistake. According to CNET:
\n\n\"Netflix now claims that it incorrectly acknowledged 1080p streaming in the company's 2010 development road map. A Netflix representative has clarified that the company plans to bring 5.1 surround and closed captioning to its streaming HD videos later this year, though 1080p Watch Instantly is not on the books for this year.\"\n\n
Oh well. Netflix must think bandwidth won't be wide enough for that kind of rez, at least not this year. Or maybe it's just being coy, still planning a big 1080p splash!
\n\nVia CNET
]]>Also along for the ride is Tranquility, whose technical name is the unassuming \"Node 3.\" That module will have six \"birthing locations\" (or in plain terms, places to plug in more modules), three of which aren't scheduled to be used, and one will be where Cupola will be connected. Tranquility will also contain the most advanced life-support systems ever flown in space, recycling wastewater and generating oxygen.
\n\nVia Space.com
]]>With this Darth Vader alarm clock, a shadow Vader will appear when the alarm goes off, reminding you to get out of bed or the forces of the Dark Side will overtake you. It also features a snooze button, just in case you feel the power of The Force deep inside you.
\n\n]]>Besides functioning as a digital recorder and high-rez playback unit, this versatile box's on-board Intel Core2 Extreme quad qx9300 processor powers a fast Windows PC inside, letting you hook up a mouse, keyboard and a larger monitor to edit together your shots using whichever Windows editing software you prefer.
\n\nShipping next month is the first Cinedeck/Extreme model, capable of handling resolutions up to 1080p. Later this year, the company will roll out versions for 3D shooting, higher-rez 2K film work, and even a model that handles footage from those sweet 1080p-shooting digital SLR cameras. Pricing starts at $7995, so you can see it's intended for pro use on film shoots.
\n\nHere's the press release with more details:
]]>The RC Hoverpod lets you do just that, using downward-blasted air to scoot this diminutive vehicle all over the place. Just stay away from bumps. I'm pretty sure the speedbump is what kept hovercrafts from ever catching on, so you'll want to keep your toy version from falling into the same trap.
\n\n]]>The phone is being unveiled next month at the CeBIT tradeshow, and it looks like it'll be coming to Europe on Vodafone. How such a high pixel density will look on such a small screen has yet to be seen, but just spec-wise, it's impressive. We're looking forward to seeing more details of this monster once it's officially available.
\n\nUnwired View, via Slashgear, via Gizmodo
]]>The clock runs on one AA battery and the clock's mechanics are accessed from the back of the canvas. This simple work of art will set you back $36. While all the world is going 3D, it's nice to see some good old-fashioned 2D media catching our eye.
\n\n]]>| \n ${xmlButton}\n ${title}\n \n ${date}\n \n | \n
| \n ${image}\n ${items}\n ${input}\n \n RSS box by p3k.org.\n \n | \n
', str, '
');
}
org.p3k.RssBox = function() {
var ref;
var ISOPATTERN = /([0-9]{4})-([0-9]{2})-([0-9]{2})T([0-9:]+).*$/;
var data = org.p3k;
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maxItems: 7,
width: 200,
align: "",
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titleBarColor: "lightblue",
titleBarTextColor: "black",
boxFillColor: "white",
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showXmlButton: "",
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data.param[i] = data.defaults[i];
} else if (i.indexOf("Color") > 0) {
data.param[i] = getColor(value);
}
}
// FIXME: Ugly work-around for many boxes using too small width
// values because the former version did not show the exact output.
if (data.param.javascript && data.param.width < 200) {
data.param.width = 200;
}
// Remove obsolete parameters from param and query
delete data.param.javascript;
data.query = data.query.replace("javascript=true", "");
var NAMESPACES = {
dc: "http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/",
rdf: "http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
};
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url = baseUri + "proxy.r?" + encodeURIComponent(url);
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request.open("GET", url, false);
request.setRequestHeader("If-Modified-Since", ifModifiedSince);
request.send("");
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doc.async = "false";
doc.loadXML(source);
return doc;
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date = new Date;
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month: padZero(date.getMonth() + 1),
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minutes: padZero(date.getMinutes()),
seconds: padZero(date.getSeconds()),
timeZone: "" // date.getTimezoneOffset()
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source: baseUri + "enclosure.gif",
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link: encodeURI(enclosure.link),
width: 13,
height: 16
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if (source && source.link) {
result += render(data.image, {
source: baseUri + "source.gif",
title: source.title,
link: encodeURI(source.link),
width: 15,
height: 15
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var rss = data.rss = {items: []};
var xml = getDocument(data.xml);
rss.error = getError();
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xml = getDocument(render(data.error, {
link: baseUri + "?" + encodeXml(data.query),
message: encodeXml(rss.error)
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param.showXmlButton = 1;
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rss.link = getText(getNode(channel, "channelLink"));
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ref.description = getText(getNode(channel, "imageCaption"));
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root.getAttribute("version");
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rss.description = getText(getNode(channel, "description"));
rss.link = getText(getNode(channel, "link"));
var image = getNode(xml, "image");
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ref = rss.image = {};
ref.source = getText(getNode(image, "url"));
ref.title = getText(getNode(image, "title"));
ref.link = getText(getNode(image, "link"));
ref.width = getText(getNode(image, "width"));
ref.height = getText(getNode(image, "height"));
ref.description = getText(getNode(image, "description"));
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if (type === "rdf:RDF") {
rss.date = renderDate(getText(getNode(channel, "date", "dc")) || data.modified);
rss.rights = getText(getNode(channel, "creator", "dc"));
var input = getNode(root, "textinput");
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ref.description = getText(getNode(input, "description"));
ref.name = getText(getNode(input, "name"));
ref.title = getText(getNode(input, "title"));
}
} else {
rss.date = renderDate(getText(getNode(channel, "lastBuildDate") || getText(getNode(channel, "pubDate"))) || data.modified);
rss.rights = getText(getNode(channel, "copyright"));
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var item, text, node;
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description: (!param.compact || !item.title) && item.description,
buttons: renderButtons(item.enclosure, item.source)
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title: rss.link ? render(data.link, {
link: encodeURI(rss.link),
text: rss.title,
'class': "rssBoxTitle",
style: "color: " + param.titleBarTextColor
}) : rss.title,
description: rss.description,
items: items,
xmlButton: param.showXmlButton && render(data.image, {
link: param.url,
source: baseUri + "rss.png",
title: rss.format + " " + rss.version,
width: 16,
height: 16,
align: "right",
hspace: 3
}),
image: !param.compact && rss.image && render(data.image, {
link: encodeURI(rss.image.link),
source: rss.image.source,
width: rss.image.width,
height: rss.image.height,
title: rss.image.title,
align: "right",
valign: "baseline",
hspace: 5,
vspace: 5
}),
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description: rss.input.description,
name: rss.input.name,
title: rss.input.title
}),
date: rss.date,
width: param.width,
frameColor: param.frameColor,
fontFace: param.fontFace,
align: param.align,
titleBarColor: param.titleBarColor,
titleBarTextColor: param.titleBarTextColor,
boxFillColor: param.boxFillColor,
textColor: param.textColor
});
if (!window.rssBoxSetup) {
document.write(box);
}
return box;
};
org.p3k.RssBox();