Monday, February 21, 2005

Tech bits

Network magic can help you easily create a home network; looks pretty cool if you want to easily configure a home network without much technical knowledge (basically adds a network management layer that, no surprise here, will have add-on applications in the future) | via this post on Engadget

More stupidity from TiVo -- the Series 2 players will now support 802.11g USB adapters, but you can't use any of the extra speed.  Keep your eye on the CompUSA mail-in rebates, get a 802.11b for free, and don't bother with the "g".  For that matter, just ditch the TiVo. | via this post on Engadget

DVI vs. HDMI vs. component video -- all I know is that both of my plasmas are running component, and while both have HDMI and there's currently nothing plugged into that port | via this post on Engadget

Motorola is going to start creating a line of "Skype Ready" products.  No big surprise here and no mention of an exclusive deal -- I expect to see a lot more Skype Ready products from many more manufacturers in the future | via this post on Engadget

The Motorola iTunes phone (named "ROKR") will only be allowed to load a limited number of tracks to ensure that it does not bite to hard into Apple's iPod hardware sales.  No definite track number limit or storage capacity maximum at this point.  I'm sure that no one will be try to develop a hack for this | via this post on Engadget

Codename RAZRberry -- apparently Motorola is already working on a RAZR form-factor MPx.  Since they haven't yet released the MPx, maybe they'll just skip releasing it in the states and go straight to the RAZRberry or maybe they'll release the MPx and then release the RAZRberry 6 months later or maybe it's all a big lie.  Hard to tell, but everyone's been waiting for the MPx for longer than a year and we still haven't seen the thing in the US | via this post on Engadget

DRM pissing contest: iTunes vs. Napster.  Apparently Steve Jobs fired off an e-mail to record company execs, including instructions that allow you to work around the Napster subscription service.  Not to be outdone, the Napster CEO fired off a web link to the same group of record company execs that had software to strip the FairPlay DRM off iTunes songs.  As it says in the post:  This ignores the fact that in order to download 1000 songs from iTunes you would need to spend roughly $1000 whereas with Napster you just need time, a whole lot of precious time, to do it right. | via this post on TUAW

Got a PowerBook G4 already?  Don't want to buy a new one?  Download iScroll, which enables the same trackpad scrolling functionality that the new powerbooks have | via this post on jluster.org

Hack your Senseo coffee maker and make it so that you can use any coffee pods | via this post on Boing Boing

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