Flex DVD another “final stand” in the physical vs. digital format war?

Label me intrigued but not enough to buy — Flex DVD, a newcomer in the physical format arena brings with it green promises and flexibility to boot. The Flex’s claim to fame is that it needs only 50% of the raw plastic to form each disc…and of course that the disc is highly flexible without breaking. Not to mention, it’s much thinner than traditional DVDs at a mere 0.6mm. Because of the diet, mailing said discs will be much cheaper as well. Super! How soon until we getting junk discs in the mail again?

As far as storage goes, the Flex DVDs hold the same 4.7GB of digital content and are otherwise completely the same as their harder, more inflexible brother. With the rush to digital getting faster and more streamlined everyday, who really believes that another physical medium, (even though just a refresh of a tried and true golden’ oldie), is going to get any worthwhile following? At best it will prolong physical formats another year, possibly two in the move to all digital. Agree?

Source: Slippery Brick, CD Digital Card

It’s a bird. It’s a plane….it really is a plane…with an iPhone strapped on.

For the aviation hobbiest and videographer junkie who lurks within, the ultimate entertainment in life is that of “birds eye” views from high above mortal eyes. Only there can we truly experience the beauty of this small planet we inhabit. One brave iPhone 3GS owner took it upon himself and his iPhone’s life to bring us video while not so stunning, is pretty cool none the less. If you want to see the noisy and blurry video of an iPhone 3GS strapped to an RC plane’s belly happily storing the ride in pure digital format, come on in and partake dear reader.

Liquid cooled LED lightbulb makes a tree smile

Even though many decades passed with the standard incandescent light bulb remaining largely unchanged, science in this past decade as finally set its sites on one of the world’s most commonly used gadgets. A company called Eternaleds has launched a new liquid cooled LED lightbulb given the name “Hydrolux”. The cooling of the internals comes by way of paraffin oil. Don’t worry about toxicity as the oil is completely safe and has been deemed so by UL and ROHS standard. Currently the bulb only comes in two colors, “warm white” and “daylight” and one wattage, 4W. However, the company says that 8W, 12W, and 16W versions of the Hydrolux are on track for release by the end of the year. Who’s ready for some tree smilin’ fun?!

Source: Geeky-Gadgets, Tech Fresh

Warner music wants you to hate them

The music and copyright industry is so backwards, antiquated, and completley blind that a major fallout from the general popular is all but certain in the nearer future. While stories of stupid rulings on lawsuits centering around music copyrights is nothing new, a new action taken by Warner Music shows just how stupid these people that run these “organizations” really are. Time and time again we see that these mobs have absolutely no idea what copyright actually entitles them to as they abuse copyright law and power. So what exactly did Wonder Warner do this time?

BlackBerry OS 5.0 finally ushers in tabbed browsing

RIM and BlackBerrys are one of my top smartphone choices. They may not be the prettiest thing in town nor the most intuitive, but their sheer speed, simplicity, and messaging capabilities often make up for it. While the BB browser until recently has been the butt of jokes because it was downright terrible (even that’s giving it some), OS 4.6 and 4.7 have brought many improvements in both speed and rendering quality to the in-house browser. OS 5.0 further improves upon the BlackBerry browser by adding one long overdue feature: Tabbed browsing. While it still isn’t anywhere close to dethroning Apple or Android in terms of mobile browsers, the addition of tabbed browsing will bring a much needed feature that many crack addicts have been clamoring many years for. The only problem is that so far in the OS 5.0 beta, setting up multiple tabs is easy as seen in the image above, but, moving in between those tabs is downright hell. Let’s hope RIM adds some shortcuts before 5.0 goes live. Welcome to 2007! Come on in for a few more screenshots of multiple tabs in action.

Palm Pre/iTunes love follow up: iTunes 8.2.1 ends relationship!

The announcement of native iTunes support for the Palm Pre was by far one of the biggest shockers to come from Palm land way back when the Pre was but a mere want. Now that it has transgressed into a have, many users have been quite happy with the native iTunes integration. Naturally Apple isn’t as it is an “outside” in their not so perfect world. A few weeks back, the two exchanged messages via press releases, twitter accounts, and public announcements centering around the doomed from the beginning union. And doomed it is as a new iTunes 8.2.1 released today may just does in fact break the Pre’s iTunes loving fun. Per Apple update:

“iTunes 8.2.1 provides a number of important bug fixes and addresses and issue with verification of Apple devices.”

**The emphasis on the end is self added.

What does it mean? Only that Apple went above and beyond to purposefully block the Palm Pre form syncing with iTunes — a bastardly move to say the least, though not unexpected. Still, such moves by Apple make it hard to love them outright as you’re always worried about your own rights. Can anyone confirm if this is in fact true or is your Pre still happily walking down the isle with iTunes?

UpdateA posting on PreCentral confirms that the dirty deed has been done by Apple. iTunes 8.2.1 does in fact stop the Palm Pre from syncing with iTunes. So, Pre users who enjoy the forbidden fruits, DO NOT UPGRADE!

Update 2Apple wasn’t just content with cleverly wording their reasons for disabling the Pre’s syncing ability and actually came flat out and admitted their real intentions to Business Week when Apple spokeswoman, Natalie Kerris said:

It also disables devices falsely pretending to be iPods, including the Palm Pre. As we’ve said before, newer versions of Apple’s iTunes software may no longer provide syncing functionality with unsupported digital media players.

And the ball is back in the mouse’s court…

Update 3The 1.1 webOS update has put the ball back in to Apple’s court as 1.1 re-enables the Pre/iTunes relationship via a new loophole. So….anyone willing to wager bets on how long it will take Apple to patch the new hole? Heck, how long do you think the Palm and Apple will play this cat and mouse game?

Source: TUAW, Mac Rumors

For the Photoshop fanatics: The Photoshop fridge magnet

Stocking stuffers and other small gifts can sometimes be difficult to choose. Why waste countless hours or days on finding a gift that in all reality isn’t even worth that much? The nerds, more importantly graphic nerds of your life have a new easy solution — the Photoshop fridge magnet. While you can’t really do anything with the various color pallets and templates, the eye candy alone will keep you occupied for at least a few seconds. Not to mention, anyone who comes to your humble abode and notices photoshop magnets will know flat out for a fact that you are a nerd. Those of you who want a Windows version are out of luck. It looks like the manufacturers use a Mac…

Buy from Think Geek: $25

Techchee, Geeky-Gadgets