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Posts Tagged ‘sony’

ReBlog – Sony to Apple: ‘Thank You sir, May I Have Another?’

June 28th, 2009 View Comments

Reuters:

‘Sony Corp is considering developing a cellphone-game gear hybrid in a bid to better compete with Apple Inc’s highly popular iPod and iPhone, the Nikkei business daily said on Saturday.’

That Sony is only now “considering” this epitomizes everything that’s wrong with them. They’ve been making both cell phones and handheld video game systems for years, and yet it didn’t occur to them to fuse the two until after the iPhone became a smash hit. It’s as though they learned nothing after watching the iPod kill the Walkman. – from daringfireball.net

This topic has probably been harped on at least three occasions on this blog in some form or antoher, but I gotta agree with John Gruber’s comments in the quote above. Now I may be in a different frame of mind versus the ultimate point Gruber is making, but I and any other casually observant tech and Apple enthusiast should have noticed is how a number of companies are now trying to create the iPhone killer. I’m confident that one will, maybe the Palm Pre; only time will tell. However, I think it would be wise for them to stop trying to kill the iPhone and think “innovation” or “revolution”, not that some of them aren’t, however.

What I’m getting at is while they’re focused on killing the iPhone, Apple probably has a new trick up it’s sleeve–or at least that’s been the trend. The Macintosh, the iPod, and the iPhone came out of nowhere and blew away the world. Why? Secrecy. Apple is good at it and these other companies ought to try doing the same. Yes, granted info is constantly leaking about new toys or tweaks to existing shiny Apple stuff. But still, Apple holds it’s tongue and doesn’t announce how it will flip the script, so to speak, on it’s competitors. Finally, when one recalls the year-to-year launches of a new iPhone since 2007, we may end up seeing something altogether new in the next year called the iKiller from Apple that says, “Here’s Johnny” when it boots. You just never know. I could be all wrong about this, but I’m just sayin’.

Use your Mac as a Media Server for PS3

February 23rd, 2009 View Comments

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Just got word on Facebook from Danny Choo about a program that was created where you can turn your “Mac into a Media Server and play files over the network on your PS3.”

If you’re interested and want to know how, you can find it at http://code.google.com/p/ps3mediaserver

These are the current features (this is taken direct from the link above):

Current features

  • Ready to launch and play. No codec packs to install. No folder configuration and pre-parsing or this kind of annoying thing. All your folders are directly browsed by the PS3, there’s an automatic refresh also.
  • Real-time video transcoding via MEncoder
  • DVD ISOs images / VIDEO_TS Folder transcoder
  • OGG/FLAC/MPC/APE audio transcoding
  • Thumbnail generation for Videos
  • You can choose with a virtual folder system your audio/subtitle language on the PS3!
  • All formats PS3 natively supports: MP3/WMA, JPG/PNG/GIF/TIFF, and all kind of videos (AVI, MP4, TS, M2TS, MPEG) the ps3 is willing to play
  • Display camera RAWs thumbnails (Canon / Nikon, etc.)
  • ZIP/RAR files as browsable folders
  • Support for pictures based feeds, such as Flickr and Picasaweb
  • Internet TV / Web Radio support with VLC, MEncoder or MPlayer
  • Podcasts audio/ Video feeds support
  • Basic Xbox360 support
  • Windows/Linux Only:
  • Direct streaming of DTS / DTS-HD core to the receiver
  • Remux PS3 compatible H264/MPEG2 video and all audio tracks to AC3/DTS/LPCM in real time with tsMuxer
  • FLAC 96kHz/24bits/5.1 support
  • Windows Only:
  • DVR-MS remuxer

While I don’t own a PS3 I thought I’d pass the information along, because if I did I’d probably try this. Household only has an XBox 360.

A Week with David

February 23rd, 2009 View Comments

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Sunday night I convinced myself to sit down and watch Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist. I wasn’t dazzled by the movie, but it was still entertaining on a nice laid-back and lazy Sunday kind of way. :) I’ve grown out of the appeal that I once had for watching teen flicks.

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I did end up renting more videos this week, although I tried not to. Alien Raiders looked like it would be promising so I picked it up (It sucked!!) along with my new favorite thriller, Quarantine–which I saw back in October when it came out in theaters. At the end, I walked out of the movie theater absolutely shaking. I hadn’t been so terrified from a movie since I was a little boy after watching a Nightmare on Elm Street. Anyway, I also grabbed a volume of the first season of House. Man, how I love that show, along with Fringe!

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Mmm…Foood.

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Mmmm…Naaathan’s

Earlier in the week I wanted to a change of pace as far as dinner was concerned so I took a long car ride to the mall to eat what I thought would be a delicious burger from Nathan’s. I should have known better since Nathan’s is really known for their delicious hot dogs. Bottom line is that it filled a void that needed to be satisfied or bust. I mean my monster was going to start eating me if I didn’t do something quick and appetizing.

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While I was leaving the food court of the mall, I passed by K B Toys, or what was left of it. This is the second time that this particular K B went out of business, only this time I think it’s permanent. The economy has gone to crap and our poor president is trying to lead the way out of financial slavery to freedom once more.

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While I was at the mall I decided to head to fye, but before I got there I spotted this store. Have you ever heard of the Addiction clothing brand. Well as you can see, it’s clothing with just too much of too much. It’s just not my style. It’s eye-popping yes, but tacky to me.

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Got to fye but I didn’t find what I was looking for, which was stickers. I was just in a mood to buy stickers. Don’t ask.

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So yeah, I went to FYE to look for some interesting stickers to add to my MacBook Pro (on a the protective case, of course). I didn’t spot any so I headed to Hot Topic. Yes, I confess. I shop at Hot Topic from time-to-time. I know how some people feel about that store, but I couldn’t care less. If I like something, I buy it if I can regardless of where it’s coming from (most times).

Out of all the stickers that Hot Topic had available I spotted this awesome large Joker sticker from “The Dark Knight.” I saw it and instantly had to have it. Here it is on my Mac.

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Nearing the middle of the week, the school children and staff where I work threw a party for my boss at Chuckie Cheese. Long story short, I felt so out of it that evening. I also felt strangely out of place…like a total foreigner…can’t quite put my finger on my mood that day. Part of me wanted to be in bed asleep, and the other wanted to make a cordial appearance. Eh. …No slight to my boss of course. The man is awesome and has done so much for me. My mood had nothing to do with him. Guess I was just in a funk. Nevertheless, I put on my poker face played, video games and mingled.

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Friday morning was absolutely beautiful. So I snapped a quick picture before heading to go teach.

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Later into the day on Friday I was getting sick of my iPhone case. When I put it in my pocket and take it out later it is covered in pocket lint and stuff. Not to mention that it’s hard to get out of my pocket with the case on too.Don’t get me wrong I like the case which is from Incipio. But I think I like the Incase brand better. Thinking about getting a new one later next week.

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Friday night I hit up Best Buy to search for a wide lens for my Sony Handycam DCR-DVD610 (aka ho-hum consumer brand family camcorder, but it gets the job done). I decided to get a wide lens because the camera looks zoomed in really far even though the zoom is completely zoomed out. So my video would have my big floating mug taking up so much space.

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I Went to a soccer game for two of my friends and co-workers in the morning. They played really well and I was happy to be there because I needed a change of pace to my Saturday routine–which is errands, errands, cleaning, errands, and more errands.

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Something I spotted later Saturday evening was the most insane price for regular gas, if ever I’ve seen anything like it. $5.55 dollars for gas is ridiculous….

Just kidding. This Race Trac gas station is still under construction and they haven’t even finished the set up inside the convenience store.

Laptop Hell

February 7th, 2009 View Comments

I saw this and got a chuckle out of it. Hope you fellow tech-heads get a kick out of it too. :)

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