“Master Replicas are a bunch of lunatics who watch too many movies, work too hard, have no lives, but make cool stuff that helps collector’s dreams come true. Word." Barry Jones. Manager – Star Wars Division
VideoMonday, July 31, 2006
Sunday, July 30, 2006
Mobilephones: Action over stolen mobile phones
Mobile phone companies have pledged that they will cut off 80 per cent of stolen handsets within 48 hours of thefts being reported by customers.
Under a new industry charter, Britain’s mobile phone networks will be measured on how quickly they act to disenable stolen phones, with details of their performance to be published in an annual report.
The Mobile Industry Crime Action Forum (MICAF), which has launched the initiative alongside mobile phone providers, said that in most current cases, snatched handsets were blocked by companies within 24 to 36 hours of being reported stolen.
MICAF chairman Jack Wraith told BBC News that under existing arrangements, mobile phone companies could not be held accountable for the amount of time it takes them to block stolen handsets.
Commenting on the new pledge made by mobile phone providers, Mr Wraith said: 'They are now answerable and they will get named and shamed by us if they fail to stick to the charter.'
He added that the new industry code had also been introduced in a bid to deter people from buying stolen mobile phone handsets....more
P2P: Kazaa Agrees to Pay $100 Million to Music Companies
Sharman Networks Ltd., the owner of the Kazaa file-sharing network, agreed to pay more than $100 million to settle music industry lawsuits over the illegal downloading of songs.
The settlement resolves lawsuits filed by Vivendi SA's Universal Music, Sony BMG, EMI Group Plc and Warner Music Group in Los Angeles and Australia. Sharman Networks also agreed to introduce a ``legitimate'' service and stop the illegal distribution of copyrighted files by its users.
``For the industry we consider it a great success,'' said John Kennedy, chief executive officer of the London-based International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. ``It sends a huge deterrent message to other similar sites. We hope it will drive digital revenues in a major way.''
The music industry has blamed file sharing and other illegal copying for declining sales in recent years. Global music sales fell 3 percent to $33 billion last year, the IFPI said in March. Grokster Ltd. shut down its file-sharing service in November and agreed to pay $50 million to settle the same music industry case in Los Angeles and Napster Inc. had been forced to close following a similar U.S. suit in 2000....more
Friday, July 28, 2006
Laptop: Newton Peripherals MoGo Mouse
From Jonathan, Australia.
Try as I might, I have never been able to fall in love with the little joystick that sits surrounded by the "G", "H" and "B" keys on my Fujitsu laptop. That's why I have been interested in finding a small mouse which I could pack and bring along when traveling. Oh, I've dallied with a few over the years, but the first one to really catch my eye was announced at this year's CES - the Newton Peripherals MoGo Mouse.
Take a look at the PCMCIA slot on my laptop, you'll notice the green glow from what might be a memory drive or a tiny modem.
...the 3.4" long x 2.13" wide x 0.18" thick MoGo Mouse, which is literally the size and thickness of four typical credit cards....more
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Phones: Motorola Shows the Capri Slider - the new MotoRIZR Z3
At an event in Cape Town, South Africa last week, Motorola unveiled their new line of flagship handsets for the year. The MotoRIZR ("riser") Z3, formally known as the Capri, is the company's new quad-band GSM/EDGE slider handset. In fact, the MotoRIZR Z3 is Motorola's first slider handset to be available globally. One of the key features of the MotoRIZR Z3 is a good quality 2 megapixel digital camera. The camera has a dedicated shutter button on the side of the phone and works in a landscape orientation, just like a regular camera does. Image quality seems to be much better than what we have come to expect from past Motorola megapixel cameras. Other highlights on the Z3 include a microSD/TransFlash memory card slot for photos and music, and Bluetooth A2DP stereo support....more
Saturday, July 22, 2006
Tech: Mobile Phone Market Moving Up
Although different market analysts offer slightly different numerical evidence, research firms agree: The global mobile phone market is on the rise.
Strategy Analytics reported today that shipments reached 235 million units in Q2, while IDC reports Q2 shipments of 237.8 million units. Both firms assert near-record year-over-year growth in the industry, with IDC and Strategy Analytics citing rates of 22.5 percent and 26 percent, respectively.
Both firms placed Nokia and Motorola at the head of the pack; Strategy Analytics said the two vendors accounted for a record 55 percent combined share during the quarter. Front-runner Nokia showed 4.3 percent growth from Q1 and a 28.9 increase year-over-year, with an industry-leading 78.4 million units shipped, IDC said.
However, riding on the success of the RAZR handset, Motorola may be poised to steal Nokia's crown, the firms said. The high-flying company shipped a record 51.9 million units in Q2, an increase of 12.5 percent over Q1 and 53 percent year-over-year, IDC reported....more
Thursday, July 20, 2006
News: YouTube sued over use of L.A. riot images
An independent news reporter sued the popular video-sharing service YouTube Inc. for copyright infringement, saying the Web site encouraged users to copy his protected materials.
Robert Tur, who gained fame with his helicopter-based coverage of the 1992 Los Angeles Riots and 1994 freeway chase of O.J. Simpson, filed the lawsuit Friday in U.S. District Court. It alleges that the footage was posted and circulated on YouTube without his permission.
Founded last year, the free online site allows anyone to upload and download video footage.
The suit alleges that Tur's images of the beating of trucker Reginald Denny during the riots have been downloaded thousands of times. The practice is ruining the market for his work while attracting lucrative advertising revenue to the Web site, Tur said in an interview....more
Tech: BUSlink's 64GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive PRO 2 Series
Sent in by Jonathan, Australia.
We're not exactly sure when BUSlink launched a 64GB -- that's gigabyte, yes -- flash drive, but it's right there on their site, plain as day, handily and smugly smacking down even the largest of flash drives, available for purchase for $5,000. Apparently they've also got a 32GB (not shown) and 16GB drive for $1,500, but seriously, if this isn't some kind of sick joke catering to our obsession with solid state memory, you know exactly which one it is we'll be promptly devouring as soon as we can sell off enough excess gear and internal organs to afford it. You can run an OS off a flash drive, right? Ok, good....more
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Tech: HP Memory Spot chip adds digital content to physical world
Hewlett-Packard has announced a Memory Spot chip "about the size of a grain of rice or smaller (2mm to 4mm square), with a built-in antenna. The chips could be embedded in a sheet of paper or stuck to any surface, and could eventually be available in a booklet as self-adhesive dots," says the company's press release.
It's like an RFID chip, but can hold 256 kilobits (32K) to 4 megabits (512K), so "it could store a very short video clip, several images or dozens of pages of text. Future versions could have larger capacities." ... more
Monday, July 17, 2006
Video: Downloads of Films Soon to Be Burnable
Movielink is to unveil a tech licensing deal that would enable buyers to copy content onto DVD.
The online movie service Movielink has struck a technology licensing deal that would set the stage for selling film downloads that customers could burn to DVD.
Santa Monica-based Movielink today was expected to announce a deal with Sonic Solutions to use its DVD-on-Demand software to enable computer users to burn DVD copies of movies they download off the Internet. The on-demand movie service, jointly operated by five studios, has yet to say which entertainment companies will take advantage of this new feature... more
Source: http://www.latimes.com
Sunday, July 16, 2006
News: Microsoft Targets Google, Linux Vendors
Microsoft Chief Operating Officer Kevin Turner had some strong words for Google and Linux vendors looking to stomp on the software dynasty.
"We're not going to let Google win in the enterprise space. That's our house, our market space," said the 40-year-old Turner, the former Wal-Mart CIO whose tough talk elicited cheers from hundreds of Microsoft partners gathered for the closing keynote at Microsoft's partner conference Thursday in Boston.
"Then we've got Novell, Linux, Red Hat and other competitors. We're going after IBM and Google," Turner said. "We're going to win because we have a better solution, better total cost of ownership. We're going to get at the competition."
Source: http://www.informationweek.com
Sunday, July 9, 2006
Monday, July 3, 2006
Photos: MAAD.sg Red Dot Museum
Check the following link to see some of the photos taken during yesterday's Maad Sunday event at Red Dot Museum. Link
Saturday, July 1, 2006
BAK2u in SpringWise.com
Last year, we featured a few tech-savvy lost and found services that let consumers label their valuables and recover them if lost or stolen.
A recent spotting came in from Singapore, where Bak2u offers various ways of securing expensive gadgets. Bak2u labels have ID numbers and can be stuck on portable devices. Owners register their items on Bak2u's website, and if an item is found, the finder can call a toll-free number to return the item. As Bak2u says, the service makes it easy for good Samaritans to return expensive gadgets to their owners.*
Of course, some finders would rather be keepers than good Samaritans. Which is where Bak2u's PhoneBak comes in. Launched recently, PhoneBak is stealth software that quietly alerts the owner when a thief turns on a stolen device after inserting his own SIM card.
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