April 2007

Roth Audioblob2 Review (60%)
The Audioblob2 is a 2.1 stereo system i.e. two satellites and a big subwoofer which also contains the amplifier and external connections.
The subwoofer is chunky (about 11 1/2″ by 8 1/2″ by 11″), it has a single driver and opposite an exhaust port (that looks like a speaker) it’s quite a heavy unit. “Spikes” are supplied which should be screwed into its base and the whole thing sits on the floor.
The satellites are reasonably sized being 5 1/2″ by 4″ by 4 1/2″, but they feel a bit flimsy and topple over quite easily. They should sit on your desk.
Cables are supplied to connect everything together, but the satellite phono to bare wire cables look a bit cheap and the connectors aren’t anything special. There’s a standard mini-jack to phono to connect to an iPod dock or PC system.
Sound
There’s quite a punch, especially as there’s 28W pumped into the subwoofer and 12W to the satellites, overall the sound is better than your average PC speaker system with quite a warm sound to it all. However it’s all very dependent on where you place everything. If the
subwoofer is on old floor boards, your downstairs neighbours might get upset.
The subwoofer is finished in a very dark gloss, which means dust becomes very noticeable pretty quickly. It seems relatively resistant to scuffs.
Unfortunately, though the sound is better than your average PC/iPod speaker system, it’s not that special.
Tech Specs
The satellites have: –
Frequency Response: 80Hz – 56KHz
Power: 12W
Subwoofer: –
Frequency Response: 42Hz – 80Hz
Inputs: 1 phone (3.5mm jack to phone lead supplied)
Outputs (to sat): 2 x phone (phone to bare wire leads supplied)
Input Power: 230V AC, 50Hz, 100VA
The unit reviewed was black, though it also come in white.
Verdict
A better than average PC/iPod speaker system for around 100 quid.
Features: 61%,
Ease of Use: 79%
Value for Money: 70%
Overall: 60%
25 April, 2007
Review: Lindy CD/DVD Lens Cleaner (70%)
After our Numark CD1 Mixer developed a worrying penchant for spontaneous remixing (resulting in a sea of unimpressed glares from the dance floor), we feared that the machine may have been subjected to a Ramones song too many.
After testing at home, we realised that CDs that played perfectly well on other players were jumping all over t’shop on the Numark and that it had become more sensitive than usual to vibration.
If you’re a DJ playing out on a Saturday night, you’re likely to feel more vibrations than most with the dance floor bouncing to an air punchin’, all gyratin’ crowd (or an advancing angry mob demanding that the idiot behind the decks is removed tout de suite), so a sensitive CD deck is not good news.
We took the Numark into our testing labs (OK, the kitchen table) and gave it a good clean before resorting to the rather unscientific method of opening the CD trays and blowing like billy-o inside, all to no avail.
Testing the CD cleaner
In desperation – and with a DJ booking looming at a venue noted for its no-nonsense crowd – we thought we’d give the Lindy Multi-format CD/DVD Lens Cleaner a go.
Opening the packaging was a little disappointing. We were expecting hi-tech sprays, advanced lotions and cunning cleaning mechanisms, but all we found was a CD with a rather comical mini shaving brush sticking out in the middle.
The instructions were equally unfussy, with a simple exhortation to shove in the CD and play track 12.
Naturally, we were intrigued what lived on the other tracks, and discovered curious snippets of avant garde industrial
metal machine noise, before track 12 started up with a burst of jaunty Euro-pop.
Before we had chance to put on our pink leg warmers and get grooving, the track went silent while (we presume) the little brush does it head cleaning thing for about 20 seconds.
We ran the cleaner on our Numark CD1 a couple of times and are pleased to say that it seemed to do the business, with the decks working fine at the gig next day (although we’d also mounted the player on a mat of bubble wrap, just to be sure).
Of course, contrary to the famed Tomorrow’s World demonstration where it appeared that CDs were so tough, they’d probably outlive several direct nuclear hits, some CDs do fail no matter what.
We’ve had more than enough expensive CDs (as well as dodgier MP3 copies) fail miserably mid-gig, but if your CD player is in tip top shape there’s more chance you’ll be spared dancefloor disasters, so it’s worth giving the Lindy cleaner a spin.
Don’t expect miracles though, as we’ve seen more than enough CD players terminally self-destruct, but at just a fiver the CD cleaner looks to be worth a pop.
Our verdict
Features: 75%
Ease of Use: 80%
Value for Money: 65%
Overall: 70%
Lindy
25 April, 2007
Commodore Gaming PCs Released In UK
Commodore – a name sure to turn old skool gamers of a certain age all misty eyed and nostalgic – has released a range of high end gaming PCs.
The top spec’d Commodore GX and Commodore xx models will only be available from their online store, while the Commodore g and Commodore GS range will sold in retail outlets from May.
Sadly, the trusty old Amiga OS is nowhere to be seen, with all the machines running the Windows Vista operating system.
The top of the range XX model has a price tag sure to induce “Gordon Bennett!” exclamations, serving up a £2,900 baseline spec featuring an Intel Core2 Extreme Quad-Core processor QX6700: 2.66GHz 8MB Cache, ASUS P5N32-E NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI motherboard, 2x NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB SLI graphics cards, 2x 500GB 7200 RPM SATA Raid 0 hard drives and 2GB of 1066MHz RAM, running on Windows Vista Home Premium.
And that’s without a monitor, keyboard and mouse and just a two year service and parts warranty.
For those with extra voluminous pockets, machine requirements can be customised further online, with additional options like a BluRay writer, extra RAM and bigger drives pushing the price into the stratosphere.
Mad for it gamers might also warm to Commodore Gaming’s ‘C-kins’ designs which let users select one of a 100 flashy, scratch-proof, PC case paint jobs created using a patented dye process.
“We’re extremely excited and proud to offer our range of exceptional gaming machines and since PC gaming and online gaming is about instant entertainment, this is what we intend to deliver with machines that will satisfy everyone from the casual gamer to the professional,” piped Bala Keilman, CEO for Commodore Gaming.
Commodore says it plans to roll out a European store in mid May, accompanying retail outlets in UK, Germany, France and the Benelux.
Commodore
24 April, 2007
iRiver’s B20 PMP Set To Ship
It’s been a long time coming after being announced way back at CES in January 2007, but word is that iRiver’s B20 is finally about to start shipping.
It’s a lovely looking thing too, packing a ton of functionality into its diminutive dimensions, with the business end dominated by a 2.4inch 260,000 colour TFT-LCD display.
Inside there’s a feast of techno-gubbins taking care of your every multimedia need, with the device ready and willing to play about with movies, music, pictures, videos, text and digital broadcasting.
There’s support for MP3, WMA, OGG, AVI (MPEG4), WMV9, JPG playback, as well as an onboard FM radio with programmable FM recording, T-DMB recording, a voice recorder and alarm.
Battery life is claimed at up to 17 hours for MP3 playback, 4 hours for video, 7 hours for DAB, dropping down to just 4 hours for DMB (Digital Multimedia Broadcasting).
The player comes in 2GB and 4GB flash memory flavours and there’s a Mini SD card slot for expansion.
Pricing should be around €164 for the 2GB version and €206 for the 4Gb jobbie.
Specs:
Display: 2.4inch 260,000 colour TFT-LCD display
Triple-band support (Band 3 + Band L + Analogue FM)
Frequency: 174MHz~240MHz(Band 3), 1.452GHz~1.492GHz(Band L)
1GB/2GB/4GB flash memory capacity, with Mini SD card expansion slot
Built in T-DMB recording
Integrated FM Tuner, voice recorder and alarm
Supported file types: MP3, WMA, OGG, AVI (MPEG4), WMV9, JPG
Battery life up to 17 hours (MP3), 4 hours (Video), 7 hours (DAB), 4 hours (DMB)
iRiver D-Click System navigation
Built in speaker
Source
24 April, 2007
£25,000 Winnings For Getting To 100
In this decimal-obsessed society that we live in, there is a general amazement when someone reaches 100 years old.
Mr Alec Holden from Epsom, Surrey clearly understood this when he placed a £10 bet ten years ago with UK bookie William Hill that he would survive a century.
Today he’s celebrating his 100th birthday, a letter from the Queen and his £25,000 winnings.
His view on the recipe for success? Porridge for breakfast, don’t worry about anything, do as little work as possible and keep breathing!
Alec keeps his mind active by playing chess against his computer everyday and also runs a chess club.
Listening to him on Today on Radio 4 this morning he sounded bright and sprightly taking a very positive view of his age saying that he’s looking forward to “starting off again at 100.”
Although William Hill is down £25,000, they’ll be making saving all of the advertising that they’ll be getting from this story.
Interesting to hear from them that they are no longer take bets of getting to 100, but are pushing out the year out to 110.
24 April, 2007
Facebook Searches For Its Identity
The Internet has undergone a revolution in the past few years, and one of the major trends we’ve seen is that of social networking. I suspect that a substantial proportion of those reading this are a member of one or more social networks, and those who are not are surely aware of the phenomenon which MySpace and others represent.
Whilst I have used MySpace, Bebo and other social networks in the past, the one which I have found consistently useful (if that is the right choice of word) is Facebook. This site began in the US as a way for students at the same college to communicate with each other and organise their social lives together online, and has since come to universities everywhere and most recently, with the advent of region-based ‘networks’, to everyone. Certainly in my social circle, Facebook is gaining real traction, probably surpassing market leader MySpace as the place to join.
How do FaceBook and MySpace Differ?
In many ways the two services could not be more different. A subtle difference is the emphasis which Facebook places on keeping in touch with those who one already knows. MySpace, on the other hand, is quite keen to help you meet new people. The Facebook approach sits more nicely with the way most people like to interact with others; MySpace demands what you could call a social paradigm shift, if you are to take it seriously. Whilst that is not a criticism of MySpace (I know someone who is ostensibly head over heels at the moment with a person he met entirely over MySpace), it does mean that the barrier to Facebook adoption is considerably lower than that of its larger rival – an important fact given the relatively low overall percentage of the population using social networking sites currently. Future growth in the space will predominantly come from those outside the current 16-25 year olds that make up the majority of their users, who are more happy to be flexible with how their social lives operate. Facebook is more equipped to meet the needs of those who are not so flexible.
Customisation
Another key difference is way in which MySpace users are able to customise their profile pages, whereas Facebook users are allowed no such features. Whilst the claimed potential to achieve self expression by creating an appalling design for one’s profile page is a mystery to me, I do see the appeal of the widgets platform MySpace offers.
For the uninitiated, widgets are small boxes containing content from a third-party provider. That could be an embedded YouTube video, the contents of an RSS feed or even a dynamic app, such as livechat2im, which allows a visitor to a profile page to have an instant messaging chat with the owner directly through the page. None of this is possible with Facebook at the moment, although Mashable reported a rumour this week that Facebook is considering implementing widgets. Pete Cashmore argued that widgets is currently the key functionality MySpace has which Facebook does not, and that it would be the best way to ‘steal the social networking crown from MySpace’.
I’m not sure I entirely agree with Pete. I think it is in a better position to grow in the medium term future than MySpace is, but it is continuously under pressure to get quick growth by trying to steal users from MySpace. Building a ‘better MySpace’ probably isn’t the way forward if it is to ultimately overtake MySpace, and rumoured features such as its classified ads service seem to indicate that Facebook is aware of that. Facebook needs to be clearly different from MySpace, and adding widgets would possibly damage that.
Who will win long term?
I will end with a prediction; in five years, if Facebook doesn’t pander to the temptation to be like MySpace, it will be significantly bigger in terms of users and pageviews than the Murdoch-owned rival.
Huw Leslie is editor of UK-based Web 2.0 and software blog GizBuzz. He is a co-founder of Oratos Media and Klaxis, and his personal blog is For Crying Out Loud.
24 April, 2007
Via Pico-ITX VT6047: The World’s Smallest Motherboard
Taiwanese chipset manufacturer Via Technologies has released a motherboard so teeny-weensy that it could almost fit in a box of playing cards.
Via claims that their VT6047 Pico-ITX form factor motherboard is the smallest fully-featured x86 mainboard in the known universe, and we certainly haven’t seen anything smaller.
Although motherboards may not be the sexiest piece of kit around, creating a board as tiny as this little puppy opens up a world of possibilities for ultra-compact PC systems and appliances.
The Pico-ITX ‘board measures up at just 10cm x 7.2cm, and is around 50 per cent smaller than the previous ‘smallest motherboard’ title holder, the Nano-ITX form factor.
The pint sized motherboard is designed to be powered by one of Via’s energy efficient processor platforms – like the Via C7 or the fan-free Eden processor in the 21mm x 21mm nanoBGA2 package – with the resultant combo delivering a hefty clout into a low heat, low power, ultra-compact package.
“The Pico-ITX represents Via’s commitment to spearhead x86 innovation through our proven technology leadership in driving down the platform size,” purred Richard Brown, vice president of corporate marketing at Via.
“As with the Mini-ITX and Nano-ITX form factors before it, this new platform has raised the excitement level among enthusiasts and customers alike, firing the imagination an almost unlimited range of what were previously impossibly small systems,” he added.
Consumer PCs built around the Pico-ITX form factor motherboard are expected soon.
Via Pico-ITX
23 April, 2007
FunnyOrDie: Proof That Comedy Is Regional
Wired have a slightly gushing piece about a new niche video site in the YouTube mold – FunnyOrDie.
The central premise – take ‘celebrities’, add user generated content and a large dollop of VC funding from Sequoia Capital – mix up and hope to get a huge money-making success on your hands.
So far, the runaway success, in terms of video views, is a piece called The Landlord, (warning – spoiler follows) where the landlord is two years old and the tenant is US comedian, Will Ferrell. The joke is two fold – a child is the landlord and it swears.
Many of the commentors obviously find it funny, but many do not. We’re in the second category.
Once you’ve got the idea, for us it failed to make us laugh. Have a watch and tell us what you think (probably NWS) …
We would have used the video on FunnyOrDie, but they don’t honour the AutoStart=false flag and it would have played as soon as you opened this Web page – which is most tedious.
It obviously works in the US as it is supposed to have had 7 million views in the first 24 hours of release and is now sitting on over 12.5 million views.
Watching some of the other videos on the site proves one thing to us – comedy writing and the results it produces are rarely international.
Plenty of the videos featured just weren’t funny to us as UK viewers – they didn’t even raise a titter. One reaction was even more strident “I never want to see that site again.”
What will this lead to? We think a further fragmentation of comedy video sites along geographic lines? Or, as we suspect, the rise of sites that will gather country-focused comedy and point to videos on the myriad of video hosting sites that are springing up on a near-daily basis.
The sites making the advertising money will be the meta-referring sites, and the people paying the bills will be the hosting sites
FunnyOrDie – the latter.
Source – Wired
23 April, 2007
Yamada HTV-200XU All-In-One Entertainment System
Not to be confused with the deceptively similar sounding (and far more famous) Yamaha brand, German tech company Yamada hope that their HTV-200XU home system will find a place in your bijou living quarters.
The bookshelf system manages to cram in just about everything you’ll need for an all-in-one home entertainment system into a diminutive package, right down to a 7″ colour LCD screen on the front.
The all-black system comes with matching speakers (with removable grills for that macho ‘top off’ look), and comes stuffed to the gills with multimedia playback functionality.
The system sports a DVB-T tuner and analogue FM tuner, a DVD player that can handle just about every recordable format in town ( DVD, DVD R/RW, DVD+R/RW, CD and CD-R/RW) and even offers 5.1 Sound System output backed by S-video, video, stereo and digital coaxial line-outs.
The HTV-200XU can also keep you entertained with support for DVDs, JPEG photos and videos in DivX and MPEG-4 formats – and it can rip CDs too.
Boasting a fairly reasonable 30 Watts RMS output, the Yamada HTV-200XU also has a USB port for hooking up to your home PC or MP3 player, with the whole caboodle setting you back 220 Euros.
While there’s no denying that the Yamada comes with enough groovy functionality to get our little nerdy hearts skipping a beat, we’re not entirely sure we’d want one. After all, who’d want to watch a DVD at home on such a squinty screen?
yamada.de
Source
23 April, 2007
Microsoft Plans To Double Global PC Ownership To 2 Billion By 2015
Microsoft is hell bent on doubling the numbers of PCs on the planet by 2015, and is prepared to put its vast pots of money where its mouth is.
The company has announced that it will be charging governments in developing countries a paltry three dollars for copies of Windows and Office – so long as the software is being installed on computers given to schoolchildren.
Naturally, such a move would also have the happy side effect of getting the world’s young hooked into the Wonderful World o’Windows at an early stage and should reduce the amount of dodgy software slopping around undeveloped countries where piracy often runs rife.
Microsoft’s bargain basement software sale opens opportunities for tie-ins with the One Laptop Per Child project and Intel’s World Ahead Program , but Bill Gates maintains the hardware issue isn’t the toughest nut to crack.
“It’s not just the cost of the PC, but rather these issues of connectivity, of the training, the maintenance, the support, all of those have to come together,” said Gates.
More Microsoft moves
In its quest to stamp its size nines all over emerging markets, Microsoft announced that it was teaming up with Lenovo to undergo joint research at Lenovo’s Beijing lab and that they intended to double the number of global training centres to 200 by 2009.
Microsoft also revealed plans to build a Web portal for training prospective Indian IT workers and its intention to form public-private partnerships to help governments in five developing countries improve public services through technology.
Source
23 April, 2007