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Starting on or about December ‘06, you will be able to download much if not most of Universal Music’s music for free…provided you agree to watch some ads first. Viewing about 90 seconds of Perry Ellis or Levi’s commercials may get you 1 song by Ludacris. The music download service will available at SpiralFrog, and will require a monthly ‘re-viewing’ of the ads to keep the music playing. Hmm, let’s see if we’ve got this right…a 30GB capacity digital music player holds about 7,500 songs, which would require 7500 x 1.5 minutes = 7.8 days of solid ad watching each & every month to acquire the music in the first place, and subsequently to keep the music going…we’re guessing here, but that seems somewhat excessive.

Part of the Universal/Spiral strategy is to win back market share from iPod/iTunes and to counter all those free/illegal downloads (you know who you are) by moving away from the ‘fee-based’ business model. According to IFPI, there were an estimated 20 billion free songs illicitly acquired in 2005, and according to the curmudgeon, er, musician Bob Dylan, “Everybody’s gettin’ music for free …[because] …it ain’t worth nothing anyway“…hmm, sounds paradoxical.

Universal backs free music rival to iTunes – Financial Times, August 29 2006

Posted in Music Players ~ 2 Comments

Conspicuous consumption is becoming rare as it becomes more common. Few among us will ever see The Platinum, which is the world’s largest yacht, or the $10M Neiman Marcus Personal Zeppelin circa 2004, but thanks to Visualis, a European jewellery & bauble manufacturer, we stand a chance of viewing their latest interpretation of conspicuous consumption objectified. Their gold leaf draped Porsche Boxster is sufficiently inexpensive, and numerous (there may eventually be as many as nine of them) that we might actually pass one on the road, while it’s being towed to it’s next exhibit.

If nothing else, this 22-carat (to a depth of 1/8000 mm anyway) gold sports car will affirm to some social theorists that mammon rules, and that there’s just too much fun being had.

Gold Porsche: a whiff of elegance – Presseportal, 03.08.2006

Posted in Automotive ~ No Comments

Boston’s $14B Big Dig Project has had it’s share of problems, including cost overruns, water leaks, allegations of substandard materials and now, collapsing ceiling tiles. On July 10, 2006 some bolts in the Ted Williams Tunnel failed, causing some of those concrete ceiling tiles, weighing 3 tons each to fall, crushing a passing car.

Design News has a number of Special Reports outlining some of the problems with the Big Dig Project and who’s blaming who and/or what. One of those reports, entitled Boston’s Big Dig – One of Engineering’s Biggest Mistakes? goes into some detail on the challenges of suspending said concrete slabs via a few bolts and glue, and the problems that can be expected if not done right. Trumping the discussion of proper gluing techniques, however, is an article in the New York Times that questions why the tiles are there at all, let alone why they weigh so much – Why a Tunnel Has a Drop Ceiling, suggests that the tiles serve no real purpose.

Boston’s Big Dig – Design News, August 10, 2006

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Newsweek has an article that suggests that many if not most pin tumbler locks, ie those that can be opened via regular keys, are easily compromised by means of a new-ish technique called bumping. Apparently, bumping is so easy, that anyone can learn the technique in fifteen minutes – easier even than classic lock picking. Newsweek neither provides details on ‘bump keys’, nor suggests how we should protect ourselves…hinting only that Medeco locks are good. They conclude the article by making note of the ‘advances’ made by the auto industry in rendering cars more difficult to steal, via the use of RFID tags…

And ironically, just last week, an article in Wired Magazine entitled Pinch my Ride, describes how easily car security systems that are based on RFID can be broken – they make note of various devices that can ‘clone’ the codes used by RFID chips.

…and so, in these manifestly insecure times, we here at Gadgetmaniac can only offer this soupcon of advice: “Shun security!” Apparently this piece of wisdom comes directly from none other than Thales of Miletus (624-546 BCE) who is regarded as the first scientist/philosopher – normally we would take the advice of a thinker in such high standing, but we can’t quite figure out what he meant by that quotation.

Beware the ‘Bump’ Key – Newsweek, Aug. 2, 2006

Posted in General ~ 4 Comments

High-Def Digest got their hands on Training Day, one of the 1st movies available in both high-definition formats, played it on their fancy reference monitor, examined the images, listened to the sound, and decided that they preferred the HD DVD version.

And apparently, it wasn’t even close – in the reviewers opinion, HD DVD provided not only a superior picture, but the sound and menu navigation were also better than that provided by Blu-ray.

The reviewers hold out a ray of hope for the Blu-ray Disk, however, by suggesting that BD movies move to the VC-1 video codec (already supported by the BD spec) and/or move to dual-layer…the BD-HD wars go on.

Our First Blu-ray vs. HD DVD Face-Off – High-Def Digest, July 31, 2006

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X-bit Labs has a comprehensive 14-page review of some dual-core processors including Intel’s new Core Duo processor, formerly known as Conroe.

Basically, they say that the hype surrounding the Core Duo is true, and conclude with the words: “They offer remarkable performance and hence take over the leadership in the high-end processor market”.

Contemporary Dual-Core Desktop Processors Shootout – X-bit Labs, 07/19/2006

Posted in mail2web.com ~ No Comments