Archive for: CD
Remember when the iPhone 4 came out with its higher resolution video recording capabilities with iMovie and a few artists/bands made news for recording entire music videos? That’s still an impressive feat considering the iPhone 4 is a phone. But the new taker of the cake has done this ultra simplistic music creation gig one better.
The indie punk-pop group Ultramods have just released a new CD dubbed “Underwear Party” which was completely recorded and composed on an iPad 2 using the new Garageband app. $505 (lowest model iPad 2 + $5 Garageband price) is certainly an affordable way to make potential millions on musical works. If anything, it just goes to show how ever evolving technology is constantly changing the world as well as lowering the entrance cost of various services. For wannabe musicians, examples such as Ultramod should be a good motivation to get the creative juices flowing.
The inevitable death of the CD will be one step closer and 300 residents of Pitman, New Jersey out of a job come March 31st. It is on that day that a Sony spokesperson confirmed with CNET that Sony will close 1 of 2 remaining CD manufacturing plants. The reason for the closing is a given — digital media is far superior in every way, and as such, has caused more people to turn away from physical media. Of course, Sony also adds in a sagging economy and piracy (in some part) as other contributing factors to their CD woes.
While it is sad that countless families and an entire city will be feeling the pinch once Sony closes up shop, no one can say that they didn’t see this day coming. The CD/DVD medium has been on a steady decline for many years. It just isn’t economical nor efficient to lug them around anymore. On that note, some of the employees at the Pitman, N.J. plant told CNET that they planned on seeking employment at the remaining Sony CD manufacturing plant in Terre Haute, Indiana. Given the current outlook on physical media, we’d advise finding a slightly more “secure” job. But hey, if it’s all you know…
Of all the things someone could send a C&D over, fantasy creature meat is one thing I never thought I’d see. But that’s exactly what happened to ThinkGeek. Back on April Fools day, they showed off (an obvious joke) their Canned Unicorn Meat with the slogan: “The Other White Meat”. But of course, the National Pork Board (whom no body gives a damn about) didn’t respond with laughter and jest, and instead sent a 12-page long C&D to TG instead. Never mind the fact this same incompetent collection of idiots (read: Pork Board) have publicly stated that they’re phasing out the old saying — “The other white meat” — anyway.
In good humor though, Think Geek is taking the bad and turning it into something good by way of a sale. Starting today and running through June 30th, 2010, enter “PORKBOARD” at checkout regardless of the item to net yourself $10 off purchases totaling $40 or more.
Yet another example of a non-issue being turned into a seemingly massive problem and having the offended party shoot themselves in the foot — as now, millions of people will see how utterly ridiculous the Pork Board actually is. And last but not least, lawyers wonder why no one takes them seriously…
Take a gander at the first page of the Pork Board C&D after the jump…
Digital distribution may be the way of the future, but that won’t stop disc creating companies such as Storex Technologies from touting their Hyper CD technology. Hyper CD’s claim to fame is the lofty 1 petabyte (1,000,000 GB) storage capacity. Indeed, 1 PB is a ton of data and could prove rather useful in certain situations. But then you have the whole issue of it being another proprietary physical format.
So is Hyper CD worth holding our breath for?
Yesterday we highlighted a not too friendly AT&T CEO by the name of Randell Stephenson, whom after receiving a couple emails from a less than happy customer, deferred the customer to customer service. The only problem was that instead of trying to help the customer, AT&T CS sent him a C&D order.
Today the tables have changed however, with AT&T PR going into overdrive (again) with the following statement…
Were you finding it difficult to cram all that you wanted onto those tiny 50GB Blu-ray discs? I mean, 50GB isn’t sh*t anymore. The Blu-ray Disc Association apparently cares for you and I and has come forward with a new solution for those with an almost limitless amount of 1′s and 0′s to store. The added increase in storage size comes compliments of their new, freshly announced BDXL format which adds third and fourth layers to Blu-ray discs, pushing the total capacity up to 128GB! That much on a single disc is pretty insane really. The only bad news — it’ll cost you hundreds of dollars. It’ll cost you simply because those extra layers aren’t readable by current one and two-layer loving players meaning all new hardware will be required. (I’m sure Sony is bummed…)
A second new format unveiled (that will also require all new hardware) is the Intra-Hybrid Blu-ray Disc (IH-BD) that from what I gather, is an odd concoction of sorts. The deal here is that part of the disc is permanent, read-only material while the second half/layer is read/write capable. So essentially you have a disc that you can always go back and customize part of while having a “safe” permanent section.
The second format just highlighted sounds more like a cash grab honestly. I can fathom a few limited instances when such a feature would be worth it. Otherwise, Sony is waging a losing battle. For the price 128GB Blu-rays and read//read/write discs are going to cost, I’d much rather splurge on some cloud storage/huge flash drive for portable storage/safe backup/whatever it may be.
Anyone seeing themselves dropping a truckload of cash on all new Blu-ray hardware for the goods mentioned above?
Electronista
Ya, you could be all crafty and invent some uber gadget that completely automates your life — dressing you, brushing your teeth, wiping your as…. but that would just take all the fun out of life, wouldn’t it? So what is the next best thing to the brain implanted chip that allows you to see through walls and compute complex calculations faster than the world’s fastest super computer? Simple — a CD spindle bagel holder. It’s so basic yet so ingenious that I want to shake this guy (or gals) hand. As an added bonus, by not using plastic bag after plastic bag, some baby walrus laying motionless on some remote iceberg will live to see another day. Awe…how sweet. Think of the baby walruses will ya….
Dvice > Inhabitat
Running a modern Crysis-like game at 1920 x 1200 is no doubt a thrill if you have the required hardware to do so. But for all the eye candy that bombards gamers today, sometimes a “simpler life” is being sought out. The good ‘ol days of gaming with graphics measured in bits instead of MHz or RAM allotment cater as some would call it, to a more “real” or enjoyable sense of gaming. Getting this classic fix in the modern age has been made possible thanks to countless emulators and ROMs. But the process of downloading the emulator and individual ROMs can be a pain at times as can actually getting everything to run correctly. That’s where “PuppyArcade” comes in.
This disc-based OS is developed specifically for running ROMs and classic games. Games from classic systems such as Amiga, Atari, Commodor, and even more modern systems like NES, PS1, and Gamecube among others all have a spot at this table. A slightly more expanded, though certainly not final list of supported systems include:
Amiga (500, 1000, 2000), Atari (ST, 800, 800XL, 130XE, 5200), Amstrad (CPC, Plus, VEB), Arcades, Colecovision, Commodore (64, 128, VIC20, PET), GameBoys (GB, GBC, GBA), GameGear, Genesis/MegaDrive, MasterSystem, MS DOS, N64, NeoGeo, NeoGeo CD, NES/Famicom, PC Engine/TurboGrafix, PSX, ScummVM, SNES and ZX Spectrum (16k, 48k, 128k, +2, +2A, +3) & more!
If a single system just won’t cut it and/or your consider yourself a video game connoisseur, it’s be in your best interest to check out this link and pick up PuppyArcade. I’m downloading as we speak to give it a fair shot. In the meantime, give it a try yourself and let us know how it goes.
CrunchGear
If we were to add up every memory, every recollection good or bad, we would end up with terabytes if not petabytes of data. Of course, actually putting a solid number on a humans lifelong memories is near impossible. However, if you find yourself using Blu-rays to document each and every one of those moments or simply torrent legally download tons of stuff, those 50GB dual layer Blu-rays are no doubt bouncing off their limit.
For when 50GB isn’t enough, you’ll soon be able to reach for that bigger dual layer Blu-ray disc compliments of Sony and Panasonic. Their joint effort in further developing the i-MLSE (Maximum Likelihood Sequence Estimation) technology will net roughly an additional 8GB per layer — up to a total of 33.4GB of data per layer to be exact.
For now, information regarding price and availability is nil. I guess another question would be how many of you actually use Blu-ray for backup purposes as opposed to external hard drives?
TechFresh > Electronista
