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Adobe browser shortcuts make it easier to create PDFs
Adobe's .new browser shortcuts give you quick access to useful PDF tools.
You can now rip books to your Kindle, but you won't want to
One of iTunes' earliest slogans was "Rip, Mix, Burn," encouraging us to digitize our CD collections and recording custom playlists that were about as third as romantic as a mixtape. At some point, you've probably wished that you could do the same for your book collection, probably because you forgot how much effort it would take to scan in every page yourself. Despite this, Amazon is launching Kindle Convert, a way for you to rip books from their pages and bring them to your Kindle.
Star Wars Episode II and III 3D re-releases officially dated for theaters in September and October 2013
Before Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace came back to the theaters earlier this year converted for 3D, the plan was to bring the other five movies to theaters one at a time each year, but that has apparently changed. At the Star Wars Celebration VI event in Orlando (where we first found out about the Blu-ray release two years ago) Lucasfilm announced that Episodes II and III in 3D will be released in theaters back to back in fall of 2013, arriving September 20th and October 11th, respectively. Missing so far from the announcement? A reason for the back-to-back release or any word on Blu-ray 3D plans. In lieu of more details, although it means Attack of the Clones will come back later in the year than Phantom Menace did, with any luck this accelerated schedule is a good omen for the original trilogy's return. Of course, we'll have to wait and see what magic can be worked with those older film and special effects elements, however IGN apparently found an early preview of the Episode II 3D footage to be promising. [Thanks, Rachael]
ITRI touchscreen technology lets you pinch-to-zoom boob tubes of any size (video)
Turning a plain old display into a multi-touch affair isn't exactly a groundbreaking feat, but we're still drooling over the Industrial Technology Research Institute's (ITRI) latest touchscreen enabler. The Taiwan-based outfit recently showed off a new attachment that the folks over at Netbooknews claim can make displays of any size touch-friendly. We're told that the touchy-feely accessory is still in development, which means it probably won't hit our living room anytime soon, but our fingers are tingling just thinking of the possibilities. Hop on past the break to see the thing in action.
Adobe and Greystripe partner for ads that convert Flash to HTML5
When you complain about Apple's products lacking Flash support, we figure you're talking about games and video, but web developers have to make a living too, right? That's why Greystripe and Adobe are working together to bring ads to iDevices all around, with an intriguing technology that might one day enable the real reasons we want Flash as well. Like the Smokescreen demo we saw last week, Greystripe can reportedly transcode the banned content to HTML5 on the fly, and it's apparently impressive enough that Adobe's signed on to create an interactive, crossplatform ad solution (also on Android and Java devices) priced and marketed specifically to rival Apple's own. With Apple's distinguished record as keeper of the walled garden, we'll see how well that goes, but we're definitely interested in other possibilities for the company's code. Full press release after the break.
Add some color to somebody's holiday with a coloring book
What better way to add some color to someone's holiday than with a coloring book? With Kalle Svenson's Colorize your photos, converting your existing photos into ones with a coloring book effect is a simple drag and drop away. After dragging in your photos, you can make granular adjustments to the levels (fewer or more) of detail, as well as black and gray levels. In the above photo, my man Tobias Funke, originally covered up in Blue Man Group blue, has been colorized so that I can color him into whatever hue of blue my heart desires. One thing missing in the app that I'd like added is the ability to compile a coloring book. But this isn't that big an issue, as one can compile PDFs using Preview.app. Also, if you already own Adobe Photoshop, you may find that some of its built-in filters achieve a similar effect. These things aside, Colorize your photos is a straightforward and easy-to-use app suitable for both kids and the kids within us. Colorize your photos is available for purchase for USD $24.95, and as a free download trial. TUAW has 2 free licenses of Colorize your photos to give away to TUAW readers. To enter, leave a comment about the pictures you'd most want to turn into a coloring book. The rules: Open to legal US residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia and Canada (excluding Quebec) who are 18 and older. To enter, leave a comment below. The comment must be left by Wednesday, December 16, 2009 at 11:59 PM Eastern Daylight Time. You may enter only once. Two winners will be selected in a random drawing. Prize: One free license of Colorize your photos (retail value USD $24.95). Click here for Official Rules
Warner's DVD2Blu trade-in swaps Blu-rays for your DVDs, Leland Gaunt approves
After baptizing the remaining HD DVD faithful, Warner has moved on to teaching new Blu-ray converts the five pillars of faith with a trade-up program. Send in your old DVDs (just the box art won't cut it this time around, better buy some blanks and get to ripping if you still enjoy Training Day on long car trips), $7.95 - $9.95 per movie plus $4.95 for s&h (orders over $25 ship for free) and expect HD versions back in 4 - 5 weeks. Is it worth it? Depends on how many of the 55 flicks on the approved list you own (included after the break) but for most you're probably better off keeping the ones you have and eyeing budget bins carefully, nabbing catalog flicks like Harold & Kumar for less than $15 without any mail-in shenanigans shouldn't be too hard for the truly thrifty.
Win a copy of Convert for your iPhone or iPod touch
Convert is, as you might suspect, a tool for converting ducks to witches. No, wait! It's a simple conversion tool for your iPhone or iPod touch. Convert bears a slight resemblance to ConvertBot with a big, blue readout and simple gray icons, but I prefer Convert's simpler interface. You'll find the same features as in any converter, only in a compact, easy-to-use format.Polar Bear Farm gave us 40 promo codes to give away, and that's what we're doing over the weekend. To enter, tell us if you prefer good ol' English units like inches and feet, or the nefarious but accurate Metric system, beloved by nerds all over the world. As per the usual, the giveaway is only good in the US (we didn't make that rule), you must be over 18 and winners will be chosen randomly. Good luck!Here are the rules and a link to the legal statement: Open to legal US residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia who are 18 and older. To enter leave a comment indicating your preference in unit measurements: English or Metric. The comment must be left before Monday, August 10, 11:59PM Eastern Daylight Time. You may enter only once. Forty winners will be selected in a random drawing. Prize: Promo code for one copy of Convert (Unit Converter by PBF), US$1.99 value Click Here for complete Official Rules.
Wii Warm Up: Playing is believing
The biggest selling point of the Wii has to be the fact that it's incredibly fun to play. Thinking about that, we then pondered the people in our own life we've turned on to the console thanks to a play session of Wii Sports or WarioWare: Smooth Moves. Who have you turned on to the Wii in your life? And, what game was it that converted them from a casual onlooker into rabid Wii fan, combing over weekly sales in the newspaper and calling up various retail outlets to track down a console of their own? Who have you showed the wonder of the Wii off to and how quick did they want one of their own?
16-year-old converts gas truck to electric, reminds us of our wasted youth
We don't know about you, but we were doing far, far less productive things than Andrew Angelloti when we were 16. The green-minded youth -- a forum member over at Ecomodder -- has taken his 1988 Mazda pickup truck and converted it to run solely on electricity using $6,000 he'd earned as a part-time lifeguard. According to Andrew, the truck reaches a top speed of 55 MPH, sports a range of 40 miles per charge, and has acceleration that's, "Not that bad." The mod uses 20 flooded lead-acid batteries (for 120 volts), and a 60 HP, 9-inch electric motor. For most of us, that one major conversion would be enough, but Andrew is cracking away on his second EV mod, working his magic on a 1992 Toyota Tercel and gunning for more speed and a larger motor. Who said kids were lazy these days?[Via Digg]
Is HDTV finally ready for the mainstream?
It seems that this question gets posed by one mainstream media outlet or another every year or so, and what better time to ask again than following estimates that 50 million American homes will be HDTV-equipped by the end of next year? It's no secret that carriers are pushing HD more frequently in their advertising, and now that select basic cable channels are finally making the move to HD, we wonder if the currently satisfied viewers will get curious and follow along? Numerous analysts have suggested that consumers won't make the jump en masse to demand HD programming until a noticeable amount of non-network content becomes available in HD, and while CNN, Food Network, TBS, and A&E (for instance) are all going (or have gone) HD, there's still hundreds of channels out there that have yet to purchase the first piece of HD recording equipment. Is HDTV ready for mainstream? Our gut says not quite, but we're a lot closer today than we've been.[Image courtesy of PSBSpeakers]
Roxio to announce Crunch, a new video conversion app
Looks like VisualHub and iSquint are going to have some competition on their hands, as Roxio on Monday will announce Crunch, their own entry into the software video conversion market. With computer-based video leaving the nest for devices like the Apple TV, the iPod and soon the iPhone, tools that can easily convert video from a plethora of sources and formats are becoming ever the more useful. Roxio looks to make a decent splash in the market with Crunch, as it features their typical UI (which, personally, I detest) and a nice array of features, including batch encoding of multiple files, conversion of DVDs created with Toast, iMovie, and other video editing apps (in other words: it won't rip and encode commercial DVDs), support for a very wide array of video formats including the elusive MPEG-1, presets for specific devices and one killer and rare feature you don't see in many (if any) other apps: encoding from VIDEO_TS files that are ripped straight from a DVD.Still, all this comes at a price: Crunch will cost $50, whereas similar solutions that don't do DVD or VIDEO_TS conversion, like VisualHub, can be had for half that. Still, we'll have to reserve a final judgment until we can get our hands on a copy. Until then, check out our gallery of Crunch screenshots to get a better perspective on whether you should try out a demo.[Correction: VisualHub does convert VIDEO_TS folders as of version 1.1; our apologies.]%Gallery-2967%
Can the Sony Ericsson M600 be morphed into W950?
Is your straight-laced M600 getting you down? Fear not, with some sort of magic -- we have no word if this is real magic or simply some tomfoolery disguised as such -- you can add a dash of Walkman flair by converting it to a W950. We have seen similar conversion efforts in the past, and while some functionality is gained, some of course can be lost -- converting a K800 to a K810, for instance, results in the keyboard backlight no longer working. The user who reported performing this alleged trick on his handset didn't share any details about how this was done, so there isn't any way to check the credibility of this feat, so color us not too convinced on this one.
Playstation convert talks about his 360
The lovable and so very adorable Trixie posted an interview she had with a convert who ditched his Playstation 2 and jumped into the Xbox 360 community. Redstorm80 (video game elder) was a PS2 die-hard who played SOCOM and ignored every other gaming console. That is until the PS3 kept getting delayed and his friend brought over his 360 to play some Fight Night Round 3. It was love at first site and Redstorm80 hasn't looked back, actively promoting the Xbox 360 brand, and even goes as far to say that the "Xbox 360 is actually my favorite home console out of all the previous ones I've owned". We agree.Redstorm80's story isn't anything new, it happens all the time. Fans switching consoles every generation finding new game franchises and experimenting. This of course got us thinking about you, our fellow fanboys. Do you have a similar story to share once proclaiming your love for another console only to end up an Xbox 360 fanboy? Feel free to dish your converting details without fear of judgment. We've all made mistakes.[Thanks, calduper]
Make your videos PSP compatible online
Do you want to convert videos for use on your PSP without the hassle of downloading and installing any other programs? Well, for the few of you out there, there's a new solution for you: Media-Convert. The site will let you upload your own files, or simply copy-paste a URL, and have them converted into a PSP-friendly format. It's incredibly easy, and as a bonus, lets you save your results on their servers for up to 6 days.However, there's a huge drawback: the quality really sucks. In my opinion, it's barely watchable. For higher quality vids, you'll probably want to stick with PSP Fanboy Theatre.[Via Pocket Gamer]See also:Convert YouTube videos for PSP really easily
Eurovision successfully transmits US HD feed to Europeans
As if there wasn't enough variations of HD feeds, and the fact that NTSC and PAL just can't seem to get along, the last thing the blokes across the pond want (or need) is another complication when it comes to catching American sports on their HD sets. Thankfully, Eurovision is not only sparing everyone the trouble, it has reportedly claimed a victory in the typically messy conversion game. The global network operator has apparently transmitted HDTV coverage of NHL and NBA games shot in America to Europe, all without down-converting to NTSC in the process. The content originated in 1080i/60, and was rebroadcasted in the UK-friendly 1080i/50 format, all while keeping users on both ends thoroughly pleased. Eurovision's head of production and services, Tony Naets, proclaimed that Europeans who witnessed the converted coverage "were delighted with the results, which included the ingest of the original coverage through the resources of Eurovision Americas in Washington, the conversion from the original broadcast format to 1080i/50, and the transport of the converted signal via our dedicated transatlantic fiber to the European uplink." While quite a mouthful, we think we dig what he's saying, and as soon as Europe sends a few of its own HD soccer football feeds our way, we'll be grinning from ear to ear as well.
MPAA strikes again, says transporting DVDs to iPods is wrong
We don't seeing anything with helping a man out, or cutting him a sweet deal if he picks up a bundle of goods, but apparently the MPAA isn't down with companies loading the DVDs that consumers purchase onto their iPods as a friendly convenience. In another round of studios forcing consumers to purchase content multiple times for no good reason at all, Paramount Pictures has filed a lawsuit against the all but helpless Load 'N Go Video, which provided customers picking up an iPod and a few DVDs with a converting service to get flicks onto their handheld as a thank you for their business. According to the suit, the actual ripping of the DVD is illegal under the almighty DMCA, making the entire process illegal, fair use or not. Evidently selling millions of copies of Mission: Impossible III isn't good enough, as it appears that customers will be asked to shell out multiple times for the same (admittedly subpar) content. While pirating copies for personal gain is certainly aggravating the law, transcoding content for personal use sure seems harmless to us, but you'll have an exceedingly difficult time convincing Hollywood of that.
PS3 & Wii video converters now available
Red Kawa has released a pair of freeware video converters to transcode your video files for use on PlayStation 3 and Wii. Both PS3 Video 9 and Wii Video 9 are based on PSP Video 9's GUI, with a number of key improvements. These applications can also be integrated with Videora to automatically create PS3- and Wii-compatible content from BitTorrent and RSS feeds.As with Xbox 360, getting your PC's video files to run on PS3 and Wii is gonna be tedious -- so get started now. At least the good folks at Red Kawa are making the process free. (Of course, donations are always welcome.)[Thanks, John]
BBC: "Sony is losing"
Sony takes some mainstream media abuse from the BBC over their delayed European launch. Congratulations to random UK gamer Scott for giving up and buying a 360.
VisualHub - The universal video converter
VisualHub is a feature-packed and 'universal' video converter for Mac OS X from the maker of iSquint. From its website: "VisualHub bridges the gap between numerous complicated video formatting standards, and people that just want to get the job done - just what you would expect from the Mac." It boasts fast conversion from nearly every video format to iPod, PSP, DV, DVD, AVI, MP4, WMV, MPEG and Flash (what: no animated GIF?), and brags about ts three-step conversion process: click, drag, click.Fortunately, VisualHub also offers advanced features like bitrate control, frame cropping and audio quality. Xgrid is supported for those with multiple Macs on a network and CPU cycles to spare, while QuickTime Pro and other plugins need not apply.VisualHub's long list of features don't stop there, however, so check out Techspansion's product page for the full feature list and samples of its work. A demo is available, while a full license will cost you a mere $23.32 USD.[thanks Khaled!]
