Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Back in February we announced MovieBeam, the first HD on-demand movie box. Live Digitally has just published a detailed review of the Moviebeam service.

“Today, Moviebeam’s offering is, in a nutshell, a $250 set-top box that delivers up to 10 movies per week (it comes with 100 or so available to start!), available in an instantaneous on-demand offering at prices ranging from $1.99 to $3.99 per movie. All movies are available at either DVD or HDTV quality, and the box does not interfere with any other TV or Internet offerings in your household. ”

Via [I4U]

If you’re like me and were unable to get to New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival this year be sad, very sad. Now that your done moping around, head on over to MSN.com to watch the amazing concert streaming to your PC. Support the people of New Orleans while they rebuild and broaden your musical tastes. It will be streaming today until 8 pm EST and then again from 3-8 pm next sunday, May 7th.

The lineup includes: Fats Domino, Bruce Springsteen with the Seeger Sessions Band, Jimmy Buffett, Dave Matthews Band, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, Lionel Richie, Keith Urban, Yolanda Adams, Herbie Hancock, La India, The Meters, Allen Toussaint w/ Elvis Costello, Etta James, Dr. John, The Ohio Players, Irma Thomas, Ani DiFranco, Keb’ Mo’, Hugh Masekela, Robert Randolph and the Family Band, Koko Taylor, Pete Fountain, Doug Kershaw, Little Feat, Bishop Paul S. Morton, Sr., The Radiators, Sam Moore, Doug E. Fresh & Slick Rick, Warren Haynes, Angelique Kidjo, Yerba Buena, Chris Owens,Irvin Mayfield, Buckwheat Zydeco, Galactic, Deacon John, Rebirth Brass Band, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Donald Harrison w/ Eddie Palmieri, Snooks Eaglin,Cowboy Mouth, Clarence “Frogman” Henry, Kermit Ruffins, Roland Guerin w/ Marcus Roberts, Sonny Landreth, Walter “Wolfman” Washington, Terence Blanchard, the subdudes, Ellis Marsalis w/ Lew Tabackin, Nicholas Payton, The Dirty Dozen Brass Band, and many, many more.

Sony is going up or round five in the portable digital music player industry. The company was left behind in the dust when the industry leaped from CDs to MP3s. Rio, Creative, iRiver and most notably Apple came into the industry and quickly took strong market position, in an arena that Sony basically invested, portable audio. Well Sir Howard Stringer is not going to let the audio business that created the Walkman brand name just lay down and die, a top Sony executive said that they are prepping to launch new products for the market and try to up seat Apple Computer’s iPod.

The company is developing a new music player that will go on sale in the U.S.  and other markets prior to March 2007, alongside a companion download service and software, said Takao Yuhara, senior vice president of Sony, at a briefing with reporters in Tokyo. The player will be “typically Sony,” he said, drawing on the company’s strength in areas like design and long battery life.

It is certainly a good move to either drastically alter or abandon their Connect music service but we hope that the Network Walkman USB stick is not the grand solution, because that is not going to up seat the iPod. If Sony really wants to succeed they need to be a pioneer and offer some sort of watermarked MP3 files so they can play on all players but can tracked to prevent illegal transferring.

Read [PCWorld]

According to the Google translation, Japanese to English, this is what e-Let’s SK-ADP does. 

“When the Skype is utilized, usually connecting the headphone to the personal computer, you converse. Because of that when it comes to the point of always conversing before the personal computer, it compares with the fact that the cordless phone has generalized there is a surface which is inferior to comfort.”

With an additional translation, it means that you can use your home-based wired telephone to make calls using Skype.  Basically, the SK-ADP connects to your computer via USB, and the telephone connects to your home phone wiring and the phone.  Then you can use your regular corded or cordless phone at home to call through Skype.

Here are the translated instructions to make the USB connection:

Installation very simplicity! “Or it does, you connect ease” to the USB port of the personal computer, moduration of the telephone line and the telephone field for home it just is inserted. Because it operates with bus power connection, it can install easily even in the place where it does not have the electrical outlet.

I think it means that you plug the USB cord into the computer and the SK-ADP.  Regardless, the SK-ADP should be a best seller.

Read

This video has some amazing light and sound effects, not to mention the choreography.

Via [Videosift]

AOL purchased Weblogs Inc. a while back, and is expanding their blogs to include stock blogs that will be focused on eight of the top companies in the USA.  The eight companies include Time Warner (AOL’s parent company), Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple, eBay, Wal-Mart and General Electric.

According to AOL’s press release on April 27, 2006:

Each featured company will have its own dedicated blog and a team of professional bloggers, including financial professionals, analysts, current and former journalists and dedicated investing enthusiasts. The bloggers will be monitoring company and industry news and sharing their views, insights and analysis. Each blog will also offer its readers an opportunity to provide their own reactions and viewpoints in an interactive community environment.

AOL’s current financial network has eleven million unique visitors per month.  This will add even more traffic to AOL and Weblog, and expand their reach further.

Blogging Stocks
Read [News.com]

Engadget has been tipped off that Verizon and Motorola are holding a joint news conference in New York May 22. This will may finally be the day that Verizon will launch the Motorola Q. It was way back at the beginning of December that we reported the Q would be coming to Verizon. We then had some hands on time with the unit at CES and have been waiting around for the launch date ever since (with many rumored dates in between). There really isn’t much more information. I guess we’ll either be reporting the price or a new release date when the day finally rolls around. Until then, what does Q mean to you?

Read [Engadget]

Mitsubishi is once again making a big push to be a player in the video industry. They just announced two new projectors that are geared towards businesses, schools, conference rooms and your home theater.

The XL5980U LCD projector, boasts 5500 ANSI lumens, 600: contrast ratio, 3D CineView, and an anti-theft alarm for installation venues like auditoriums, college classrooms and churches. The projector also provides horizontal and vertical lens shift, offering extreme flexibility for most installations. Once the projector is in place, the picture can be readjusted optically or digitally, regardless of the screen used, without taking the projector out of its mount. Mitsubishi’s new XL5980U is available at a suggested retail price of $8,995.

Mitsubishi’s WD2000U is a native WXGA (1280 x 768) resolution, high-definition projector and utilizes Texas Instruments Digital Light Processing TrueVision DDP3020 image processing chip set. It allows for true 10-bit image processing for incredible detail across a wide screen and a 5000 hour lamp. Powered vertical and horizontal lens shift capabilities and an array of optional lenses, the WD2000U is perfect for sophisticated integration projects for business, education, even home theater applications. The WD2000U is currently available for a suggested retail price of $3,995.

[Press Release]

Microsoft has released information on their E3 exhibit, and it’s pretty and fulls of lights and high definition. The company’s Xbox 360 faction has leaked word that they will be showing hands-on demonstrations of games including Too Human, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Las Vegas, and Gears of War.

The Microsoft team will also be there to speak the truth about the Xbox 360 Camera, a rumored peripheral that is supposed to allow for video chat, and follow the PS2’s idea in gesture gaming. Also in the way of peripherals, they plan on making the little-spoken-of HD-DVD peripheral a strong presence in their exhibit with Peter Moore and crew explaining what this will mean for Xbox owners. Additional games to be announced include Indiana Jones, Crackdown, and (male gamers, control your trousers) Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball for the Xbox 360. Those high-def graphics will sure come in handy, huh?

If you own any iPod short of a Shuffle, you know you’ve played around with the click-wheel at least once or twice, and pretended to be a scratch DJ (If you blew off your ears with the volume control, believe me when I say I feel your pain.) Well, it turns out someone has taken this idea, ran with it, and made it work. A student from IAMAS Japan, Shosei Oishi, has come up with an interesting little software he calls iScratch. iScratch is based on a re-written version of the iPod’s pre-installed open source audio play program from Podzilla, and uses motions made on the touch-wheel to scratch audio files. Oishi has designed it to work with both Podzilla GUI installation and Linux OS Kernel.

So far, Oishi’s brain child is only in its beta stage, and he plans to put up downloads for it on his school webpage. However long that takes may be too long, seeing how it’s quickly gaining popularity across the pond. Oishi has already exhibited iScratch at the past Takeaway Festival in London; and will be displaying as one of the main exhibits at the upcoming Cybersonica Festival in London this May.