Devices Site

April will be a time fitness buffs who love music fall head over heels with Nike’s SportsBand. This exercising device helps accomplish everything the current Nike+iPod does, but it won’t add any new dimension. All the essentials such as recording the distance covered and velocity among others are still there, and the SportsBand won’t oust the Nike+iPod from its current market position. The SportsBand is mainly for folks who don’t have or refuse to pick up an ipod nano just to clock up a few miles along the pavement. Word has it the Nike SportsBand will retail for approximately €60.

The Nintendo Wii is one hot console despite having the lousiest hardware specifications compared to the Xbox 360 and PS3 on paper. If you still can’t find one at a store near you, fret not. The upcoming Super Smash Bros. Brawl tournament will feature a delicious prize for the winner - a Nintendo Wii that comes all decked out in Swarovski crystals for that added bling factor - 20,000 of these puppies will blind your opponent with flashes of brilliance (from your gaming masterclass and the console’s looks). It has been tagged with a market value of $4,000, which is roughly $10 Euros judging by how fast the dollar is devaluing these days. Either side of the pimped Wii shows Bowser and Mario, eternal foes who seem to have their fate intertwined together.

Now this is one nutty yet interesting project from the folks at Make - in here, you utilize Sega’s Phaser to shoot your alarm clock whenever you want to make it snooze. This is one way to start off those long Mondays on a fun path! Now all you need to do is to find a second hand Sega Phaser if you don’t already have one lying around in your attic.

This is amusing, and there are even some real practical tips in there too, but here you have it: 69 techie ways to use duct tape. My favorites - Laptop security: duct tape your laptop shut; and prevent carpal tunnel syndrome by wrapping your wrists in duct tape splints. Heh.

We thought that Eric Schmidt, the chief executive of the world’s top search engine Google was kidding when he said that Microsoft will “break” the free flow of the internet if it succeeds with their proposed Microsoft-Yahoo! deal. But things got a little more serious when Schmidt explained in detail how the internet-based systems of today are highly operateable, open systems, and the acquirement of Yahoo! by Microsoft would eventually break the system.

Schmidt also wished that this won’t happen, but he pointed out some past history of Microsoft to enforce that his statement on Microsoft breaking the system. “The things that it has done that have been so difficult for everyone” said Eric Schmidt.

During last year, the European court had brought up a landmark 2004 decision, where it’s stated that Microsoft has abuse their power of monopoly to create unwanted “havoc” to the competitors, ending up with a vast fine in the amount of $695 million. Let’s just hope that these won’t happened as Schmidt predicts otherwise it could be chaos on the World Wide Web.

Read [Reuters]

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Blu-ray disc burning on computers gets even better and easier with the launch of Roxio’s Toast 9 Titanium software. Toast 9 lets users record HD content from their HD camcorders and HD programming from TiVo DVRs and Elgato’s EyeTV devices to Blu-ray Disc. For users who haven’t adapted the Blu-ray technology yet, Roxio Toast 9 also allows burning HD videos and slide shows on standard DVDs.

Roxio’s Toast 9 Titanium also comes with a Streamer application that can be used for streaming video content stored on Mac computers to an iphone or ipod touch via Wi-Fi connection. It even works with any other connected Mac or PC as well.

Aside from these features, Toast 9 Titanium can also be used for creating great sounding CDs and DVDs and for capturing streaming audio for recording Internet radio. Toast 9 also captures music tracks and automatically tags these tracks with song titles, artist or other related information.

Other features of Roxio’s Toast 9 Titanium include:

• Mac & PC data spanning of large files across multiple discs
• Blu-ray disc support
• Video editing especially unwanted segments from TiVo, EyeTV and QuickTime
• Time Savers
• Library Extension for building an extensive audio library
• Audio fingerprinting for tagging artists, song titles and music genres
• Perfect Mixing with DJ-style cross fades and transitions, output level adjustments and enhancement filters
• On-the-go entertainment through Roxio Streamer
• High Quality Photo Discs
• Accessing iLife and Aperture libraries directly
• Personalized Disc Artwork for labels and cover

Roxio Toast 9 Titanium is now available through direct purchase at Roxio for $99.99. It will be release to other retailers and outlets this month for $99.99 as well.

Read [PR Newswire]

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I’m not a coffee drinker, I really can’t stand the stuff. I prefer to take my caffeine in Mountain Dew form. Frankly it tastes much better, and you don’t have to deal with those nasty coffee grinds at the bottom of the cup. Of course, that also means that I don’t ever have a reason to buy cool coffee mugs like this one.

While I wouldn’t actually buy this one for myself, I still think it’s a pretty cool design. The idea is that the further down you drink your coffee (or whatever is in the mug) the clearer the shape of a heart becomes. Since the outside of the cup looks quite ordinary, it would be a sneaky way to tell someone “I love you” well after you’ve left the room (after bringing them a fresh cup of Joe).

It’s only a concept design for now, but it is simple and brilliant. You know someone is going to make a mint off of these, as they would make great gifts.

Source: Yanko Design

Heise Security in the U.K. has found that USB sticks secured by fingerprint readers are not as secure as vendors are leading us to believe. Some of them can be accessed simply by using a free, open source piece of software.

Secure USB sticks are a combination of three major components–the flash memory, the fingerprint reader, and the microcontroller for controlling access along with pre-installed software. The microcontroller checks for a valid reading from the fingerprint sensor and then allows access to the protected flash memory.

Heise found that you do not need a valid fingerprint reading to gain access to the protected memory, however. Instead you can use the software PLscsi to send a Command Descriptor Block and switch the protected memory to non-protected. Heise also found that the microcontroller and software on the stick don’t always decide on the right to access, with that task falling to the software running on the PC’s OS in some cases.

The affected sticks use the Afa Technology USBest UT176 and UT169 controllers. Heise is recommending users do not buy USB sticks with fingerprint readers as a way of providing extra security to their data. Instead, hardware encrypted sticks are currently the best solution.

Those wanting to test their USB stick for vulnerability can download the PLscsi software and follow the instructions on the Heise Security website.

Read more at Heise-Online.co.uk.

Matthew’s Opinion

I’m surprised manufacturers can get away with selling products like this that market themselves as being more secure, but quite clearly aren’t.

Some of the responses Heise got from manufacturers are also surprising. One said the company was going to add to the manual that comes with the USB stick, saying that the fingerprint reader adds no extra security. Another said that only very professional users could take advantage of the vulnerability.

I think the point here is that the company should either be offering a working security solution or not selling USB sticks as such with a higher price than a standard stick.

A couple of weeks after getting rejected by Apple’s Steve Jobs saying that Adobe Flash Lite is no good for Apple’s iphone, Adobe may have found a new ally in Microsoft. Windows powered mobile phone users will soon be treated with interactive content running on Adobe Flash Player as Microsoft has licensed the Adobe Flash Lite. The Flash Lite is Adobe’s mobile version of the widely used Adobe Flash player. Microsoft has also licensed the Adobe Reader LE.

The Flash Lite 3.x browser which is issued as a plug-in for Internet Explorer mobile on Windows mobile will give users access to rich and interactive Adobe Flash powered web content. Adobe Flash Lite runs on multiple mobile platforms that include Windows Mobile, Symbian, S60 and Qualcomm BREW. Adobe Flash has been the predominantly used player for most of the interactive contents uploaded on the web today. Adobe’s Portable Document Format (PDF) documents on the other hand have been the widely used format for document exchange and sharing.

John O’Rourke, general manager for Microsoft’s Mobile Communications Business said that Adobe Flash Lite and Reader LE will enable Microsoft to give their customers more vibrant web experiences and access to entertainment and information anywhere and anytime. Adobe’s senior vice president for Mobile and Devices Al Ramadan said that his company is more than thrilled to collaborate with Microsoft on powering playback of rich, web-based Flash Player compatible content as well as document viewing on Microsoft Windows Mobile clients.

Read [Business Wire]

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Posted Mar 17th 2008 9:56AM by Paul Miller
Filed under: Desktops, Gaming
Don’t start hawking your 360 and PS3 just yet, but it sounds like PC industry upstart Acer is considering a bid for the console market, or at least some gamer market share, with a game machine based on “open standards.” Of course, this could just mean a computer built to PC Gaming Alliance specs — Acer is on the PCGA’s board — but Acer’s James T. Wong did make comparisons to Nintendo and Microsoft’s offerings, calling them closed and proprietary systems. With a history of console prices subsidized by game sales, it’s hard to imagine an “open” platform being able to compete in that space — and even harder to imagine a company like Acer getting that kind of traction with the consumer — but even if it is just a PCGA spec machine, we don’t think it could come soon enough for the struggling PC gaming market.

[Via GameStar; thanks Akshay]