Joshua Fruhlinger - Engadget

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Stories By Joshua Fruhlinger

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Accessories

Accessories By Joshua Fruhlinger

Argosy HV670 promises "infinite storage"

The HV670 DVD player/media server from Argosy sports the usual package of goods: DVD, VCD, MP3, MPEG 1/2 and JPEG formats along with a hard drive for backup and playback. The big news (according to those selling the thing)? The hard drive is removable so you can hook it up to any computer and download / backup / leech away. The hard drive connects via USB2.0 and is available in 160, 250, and 400GB capacities. As for the "infinite storage" claim, well, if you keep buying those removable drives we suppose they're right.
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Computing

Computing By Joshua Fruhlinger

Boot up in seconds with the iRam

Remember the days of RAM disks? They're back, with the Giga-byte iRam. This PC card sports four DDR DRAM units and acts as a PC drive. Claiming speeds of up to 60 times faster than a standard hard drive, Giga-byte has been demo'ing PC's starting up into XP in a matter of seconds. Users can install up to 4GB into the four slots on the PCI board. Memory is kept alive as long as the computer is plugged in, and then backed up with a 12-hour emergency battery. Expect it to cost around $60 (without the memory, of course).
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Accessories

Accessories By Joshua Fruhlinger

PC Ionizer for your new-age tower

The PC Ionizer fits into the same kind of slots you would normally use for a DVD burner or removable hard drive. Instead of doing something as useless as backing up your data, however, the PC Ionizer fills your workspace with charged ions to help you balance your body pH. Prevent disease while you finish up that spreadsheet on European leather pant buying trends or enhance your skin as you slay morlocks. The choice is yours.
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Nintendo

Nintendo By Joshua Fruhlinger

Over 300 Nintendo Entertainment System clones catalogued

Why? Because it's pure videogame porn, that's why. Since the release of the omnipresent and uber-relevant Famicon, or NES, over 300 clones have been made in everything from bug shapes to video editor / Famicon combo units. Some have cart slots, some don't. Some just look like game controllers with a card slot on the back. Many are garish homages to Apple's translucent plastic years. Our favorites? The NES-in-a-keyboard form factor. [Thanks, Howard]
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News

News By Joshua Fruhlinger

Pokia becomes Hulger

The people at Pokia who brought us the retrotastic P*Phone have changed their name to Hulger while improving their silly-but-cool cellphone handset. Along with the name change comes an improved answer / call button. So was this name change because kids kept asking if it had anything to do with an electric yellow skunk / rabbit / mouse thing? Did Cockney girls misinterpret the name as an advance? Either way, call them Hulger.
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News

News By Joshua Fruhlinger

XkPad's BodyPad: Fight!

When will they learn? XkPad has joined the legions of game accessory manufacturers asking us to stand up and do something when we sit down to play videogames. For those of you who want to mix exercise with gaming, the device uses four pressure-sensitive sensors, two on the biceps and two on the knees, along with a wireless radio belt. Compatible with the PS2 and most fighting games, BodyPad costs $80 and works with most fighting games. Us? We'll be the freaked out neighbors across the way watching in bewilderment as you virtually gank your girlfriend. [Thanks, Mike]
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PlayStation

PlayStation By Joshua Fruhlinger

Dead pixel problems on new PSPs?

The cries have been heard, and there are many. It seems Sony pushed those 1 million PSP out to the US a little too quickly, with reports are swarming in regarding units with dead pixels. Some PSPs seem to have it worse than others: some have large groups of dead dots and even entire rows or columns. The unit we bought last night had a big dead one right smack in the middle of the screen. The folks at the Sony store were kind enough to replace our unit quickly and quietly, but reports from some online vendors are less promising. We'll keep you updated as this unfolds.
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TV & Movies

TV & Movies By Joshua Fruhlinger

Ireland going all-digital in theaters

Avica Technology has embarked on a mission to outfit 515 screens throughout Ireland with a digital delivery and presentation system. The system uses a network to distribute the movies in digital format, with an encryption technology developed by Digital Cinema Initiatives. DCI (can we call it that?) is a joint venture of Disney, Fox, MGM, Paramount, Sony, Universal, and Warner Bros. They hope the new distribution and projection technology will reduce operational costs while making Tom Cruise some extra Irish cash. They plan to have all of Ireland outfitted in about a year.
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Science

Science By Joshua Fruhlinger

Mmm, Astronaut urine.

Imagine turning all that unused pee and sweat into delicious drinking water at a net cost of only $.03 a gallon. Crestridge, and investment company in Nevada, and Concern for Kids, a charity, have teamed up to develop a device that recycles otherwise not-so-yummy water sources into drinkable fluid. NASA is already testing the device for use in space where rivers and Evian appear to be in short supply. The charity arm of the organization foresees caravans of humanitarians turning diseased still water into crystal-clear, baby-saving H20.
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Accessories

Accessories By Joshua Fruhlinger

E-D Audio FX headset promises rumbling gaming immersion

The E-D Audio FX headset features a rumbling subwoofer that the folks at E-D swear will make your gaming experience more intense and immersive. It also promises enhanced "situational awareness" due to the sense of three-dimensional space the headphones give you when mixing both sound and vibration. "Literally feel your enemies [sic] footsteps approaching and intensifying," they say. Sounds like stereo with a busted woofer to us. However, the attached USB microphone and friendly $49 price tag could make it worth a try for those whose significant others are sick and tired of listening to World of Warcraft /trains. PC compatible, no Xbox version just yet.
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Accessories

Accessories By Joshua Fruhlinger

Creative poops out Vivid range of speakers

Available in the same awe-inducing colors as the Zen Micro, Creative's Vivid speakers of colorosity are finally coming to market. It looks like they will offer two different sizes, a single-speaker design as we reported earlier as well as the dual-speaker design shown here. How do they sound? Who knows, but it seems Creative picked up on something amazing: "We found that customers really liked the idea of having a choice of 10 colors," said Geraldine Lee, European business manager for Creative. "It was easy to extend this thinking to other products." We'd love to be in that meeting. "Jim, I think we should offer these speaker in multiple colors! 10 colors! Let people choose!" Heads explode, minds are blown, marketers get promotions, someone buys a lime-green set of speakers.
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Accessories

Accessories By Joshua Fruhlinger

Logitech announces mm22, their iPod speakers

Logitech, the makers of fine peripherals for everything from gaming to productivity, have finally dipped into the overcrowded iPod speaker market with their mm22 (though to be honest, we thought they already had come out with iPod speakers). Rather than use the dock connector to grab sound, the mm22 uses the headphone out. This means the mm22 is compatible with virtually any iPod, even those pre-dock dinosaurs some of us still carry around like badges of honor (it comes with several cradles to accomodate various sizes). This also means it will work with any music player, Apple-made or not. The company swears by the speakers they chose: four neodymium microdrivers (probably the basis for the "22" in the name) that they promise deliver rich, smooth sound with tremendous depth for their size.
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Computing

Computing By Joshua Fruhlinger

You look hot in pink, Mac mini

We knew it was only time keeping us from scoring a jet-black (or Carbon, in ColorWare-speak) Mac mini from ColorWare. Finally, the colorizing mavens have announced plans to drop a slew of colored Minis at slight retail premiums. Given the popularity of the mini and ColorWare's penchant for making little Apple things colorful, expect a massive handful of available tones and hues in the near future. In the case of the mini, a black case makes perfect sense for those building a mini-based entertainment systems already overpopulated by black AV components.
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Wearables

Wearables By Joshua Fruhlinger

Israeli army using wrist video screens to monitor drone planes

Tadiran Spectralink LTD, a military contractor, has developed wrist video systems for use by Israeli armed forces. The screens display data from unmanned drone planes, allowing forces to see over hills or into areas they wouldn't normally have access to. The wearable screens supply a distinct strategic advantage to those wearing them, and a clear disadvantage to those being watched. Also in development by Spectralink is a videogame-looking control console for unmanned tanks and other armed vehicles. Sam Fisher and Solid Snake would be so proud. [Thanks, Jason]
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Apps

Apps By Joshua Fruhlinger

iTunes music library flirting

The scene is both postmodern and Reineresque: young man with PowerBook in coffee shop discovers amazing music collection shared via iTunes. He hopes to God it belongs to the raven-haired hotty in the corner. He proceeds to share a library of his own, no songs, but simply titled, "Maria, I sweat your music collection." She takes note, creates a library called "try_the_new_dalek". And so began a library-name-only flirting session that will no-doubt make Mac haters seethe and AppleHeadz swoon. Either way, it's a way to pass the time between scones and textbook chapters on a lonely Tuesday eve. Try it before it becomes some new, creepy form of cyberstalking. [Via Waxy.org]
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Apps

Apps By Joshua Fruhlinger

accessTunes enables iTunes sharing via the web

You can share your iTunes library over a LAN, but sharing it over the internet isn't so easy ever since Apple disabled that brief moment of pure music sharing joy way back when. Enter accessTunes from Bains Software. accessTunes allows you to share your iTunes library over the Web, and it starts up when your Mac starts up - you don't even need to have iTunes running. You can monitor what people are listening to and password protect your library for some extra security (and to quell the concerns of digital rights folks). We haven't been able to test it out yet, so performance reports are pending. Of course, the time between now and when this turns into a music exchange protocol is probably closing rapidly, so get this while you can. [Via MacMinute]
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Reviews

Reviews By Joshua Fruhlinger

Muzio JHM-1000 MP3 Player

Not content with their JM-600 player, Muzio have gone and updated their hard drive-based player / picture viewer with a bigger screen and new format support. The JM-1000 sports a 4-gig drive and a 1.5-inch color display with a 128x128 pixel resolution at 64k colors. The new feature and support lineup includes OGG, SRS, WOW and TruBass, MP3 encoding, a text viewer, and voice recorder. It's smaller in width and length than an iPod Mini but about twice as thick. It's also USB 2.0. We still don't love the shape, but the size, color screen, and feature set definitely make it worth a look-see, since reviews have been somewhat positive.
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Apple

Apple By Joshua Fruhlinger

Apple holds off on serving subpoenas

Apple has agreed to not serve subpoenas (at least for now) to some journalists for revealing trade secrets before this year's MacWorld expo. Back in December, Apple was granted the right to subpoena O'Grady's PowerPage, AppleInsider, and Think Secret over some stories they released about the still-not-released Asteroid break-out box. It seems that now they're thinking about not going through with it. Perhaps Apple wants people to forget about Asteroid, or maybe they just realized that people weren't too thrilled with them for getting all lawyery. Either way, backing off was the right thing to do.
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Accessories

Accessories By Joshua Fruhlinger

Mac mini home theater dock concept

While everyone scrambles to get the Mac mini into their home theaters, some people are thinking (har-dee-har) outside the box. This concept, mocked up by Lester Ward, fits the mini into a home theater component-width dock with entertainment center-friendly connectors on the back. Instead of buying a digital audio connector, component video converters, and external Firewire drives, this box would have it all. The larger box also makes room for additional hard drives to turn the Mini into a true media server. The idea is a good one, and we'll probably see some accessories like this in the near future. Will they look this good, though? [Thanks, Brian and Wordman]
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Apple

Apple By Joshua Fruhlinger

Milunovich sees big things for Sony / Apple relationship

Merrill Lynch analyst Steven Milunovich thinks Apple and Sony could be working on some big things. On top of his list is a new high-end workstation based on the Sony/IBM/Toshiba Cell processor. (Go ahead and start some rumors about a new Cell-based PowerBook). Other possibilities include the oft-speculated iMovies movie store and a network-enabled TV or media server/set top box. All of this conjecture seems to be a result of Sony President Kunitake Ando's presence on stage at Macworld. After all, why was he there? Just to say hi or to give Merrill Lynch analysts something to write about? [Thanks, Brian]
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Robotics

Robotics By Joshua Fruhlinger

This robot likes to be touched

Is it a microphone on a stick? Is it a spooky, dismembered last-generation iMac looking for its head? Is it a cybernetic pussywillow? We're not sure, but this robot thing responds to sensory input like tickling, and even gets startled (see the video here). The nervous code was created by Andre Stubbe and Markus at the Berlin University of the Arts as part of a "Lustobjekt" project in a Digital Media Class. Leave it up to those crazy German kids to turn c's into k's and make it sound oh, so cyber.
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News

News By Joshua Fruhlinger

Yes, the iPod really is random

We've all heard it: "OMG! My iPod always plays Alicia Keys! It loves her as much as I do!" Apple's engineers swear that the shiny white music players actually do use pseudo-randomizing algorithms for shuffle play. The people at Newsweek were kind enough to verify this with Steve Jobs when they found that their iPod had an unhealthy obsession with Steely Dan (it happens). The conclusion? People love their iPods so much that they look for patterns in the pseudo-randomness. It's what we do, as humans.
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Gaming

Gaming By Joshua Fruhlinger

Play Tetris on a building in France using your cellphone

We do a lot of "because you can" pieces, but this one actually has some extra cool factor since it combines buildings and videogames. Project Blinkenlights has a new project called "Arcade" (their creativity may have stopped right before the naming phase) that allows lucky residents of France to play Tetris on the Bibliothèque nationale de France (at night, of course). By dialing +33 (1) 44 24 73 50, the building transforms into falling block paradise. Players use the 4, 5, and 6 buttons on their cellphones to play the game. But wait! Other games are available at different phone numbers, too. Try Pong at +33 (1) 44 24 73 51, Breakout at +33 (1) 44 24 73 52, or Pac-Man (pictured) at +33 (1) 44 24 73 53.
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Laptops

Laptops By Joshua Fruhlinger

IBM to use strained silicon to produce PowerBook G5

This won't be major news to anyone who has been following the PowerBook G5 non-release, but according to a recent article at CNET News.com, Apple is in no rush to push out a PowerBook that would compromise the platform's legacy of ergonomics and portability. Were a G5 PowerBook to come out today, it would look something like the image above. According to the article, the current G5 chip, the IBM 970FX, is just too hot and power-hungry to make it a viable portable CPU. A new chip-making process using something called strained silicon promises to produce a less-power-hungry G5 chip that will make a PowerBook G5 a reality. The new process allows the CPU's transistors to be sped up, improving clock time without requiring more power. So, will this happen any time soon? Most likely not, but here's to hoping.
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Nintendo

Nintendo By Joshua Fruhlinger

Linux on the Nintendo DS

Using a passthrough and some homebrew demos, someone has Linux running on Nintendo's new dual-screen portable gaming unit. It appears to use some external hardware, which makes the whole thing currently not-so-portable, but the idea is that all the hardware could be put on a single cartridge. Once in there, a portable dual-screen Linux system with touch-screen input and WiFi could be pretty darn useful. And fun. And only $149. [Via Waxy.org] [Correction: That's not Linux running on there, actually. Just a software demo.]
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Computing

Computing By Joshua Fruhlinger

Mac Media Center project launches

Everyone's been asking the question, but no one has the definitive answer: can the Mac mini become a viable media center? We did our part with this week's How-To, but some smart peeps in the UK have put together the Mac Media Center Project, a consortium hell-bent on coming up with the ultimate Mac mini media center solution. They already have links for audio and video connections at their site. However, the group also plans to develop applications to tie it all together. They're looking at things like the Xbox Media Center dashboards that have been going around in hacking circles for a few years as models. [Thanks, Paul]
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Gaming

Gaming By Joshua Fruhlinger

Sumea Interactive's Jumbo Rumble attempts multiplayer gameplay on cellphones

It's a tough decision - throw rocks at one another, have a conversation, get a drink, or get cozy around your cellphone for a round of Jumbo Rumble. Jumbo Rumble is Digital Chocolate's new multi-player cellphone game that wants you and your friends to game together on a 1.8-inch screen, sharing a little keypad. Imagine the fun and joy as you bump heads whilst your little elephants float into space! If you're not into elephants, you can also play Sumo Smash, which is the same game, except Sumo wrestlers take the place of the elephants. Because they're different.
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