There’s been a lot of iPod chatter in the air lately and now MacRumors and Ars Technica say that we’ll be seeing El Steve boom-boom some new gear on September 9th. No specifics on what’s in store, but new nanos are obviously on the table, as is that rumored subscription service and possibly a new iPod touch at a lower price. Anything you guys hoping for?
(Via Engadget.)
Podcasts have been around for a while - It was back in 2004 when they first caught fire. Since then, many unique and useful podcasts have risen to the top and consistently brought in audiences, most notably Diggnation and TWiT
Videocasting, on the other hand, is a new phenomenon, one that didn’t occur until the technology became available with the widespread use of YouTube, live streaming services, and better video and web cameras.
We hear less about podcasts and and more about video shows such as Epic Fu, Pop17 and even TWiT live (now streamed by StickAM). The trend seems clear - podcasting is going by the wayside and videocasting is taking the helm.
HEXUS.gaming reports that game controller builder Mad Catz is coming out with an actual full size, actual wood Stratocaster controller for Rock Band. Looks like sombody gets to sell more hardware & real straps… Maybe cases too.
‘Hey, what kind of Strat you got in there, bud?
…Uhh, it’s my Rock Band controller.’
We’re witnessing a marketing revolution here folks. Relic game controllers should be next. Hey! Why not?! Then maybe limited edition custom shop, masterbuilt, collectible controllers. Some vicarious hedge funder may even convert his ‘54 to a controller, and pose with it on the cover of Forbes or Fortune! It could happen.
All you gear entrepreneurs out there oughta put on those thinking caps. Imagine faux effects pedals and dummy pedal boards. Maybe even 5.1 surround, flat panel Marshall stack arrays for the family room. Hi-Def TV housing re-trimmed in tweed! Even faux guitar culture beats no guitar culture.
Somebody stop me!!!
(Somebody hire me!)
(Via Strat-O-Blogster Guitar Blog.)
Qingbar probably hopes that its MP101 Mini Projector for the iPod/iPhone gets picked up en masse by business travelers looking to turn their seat backs into mini-movie theaters, but we think the image quality might deter all but the blindest travelers from abandoning their tiny screens. According to the specs and the image below, what you’re going to get with this portable projector is a 5W LED (with a lumens of 10-15), a 20,000 hour lamp life, and projected image from 15″ to 27″. It’s neat, but with no price the ’sub par’ headline stays put.
Honla via GadgetGrid]
(Via Gizmodo.)
All platforms with Adobe AIR: When you follow enough chatty people on Twitter, some days the noise can overwhelm the signal—that’s when you want TweetDeck, a full-featured desktop Twitter client that groups, filters, and searches incoming tweets for you. TweetDeck’s killer feature is its ability to separate the people you follow on Twitter into groups—like ‘Don’t Miss,’ ‘Co-workers,’ and ‘Chatty types.’ That way while tweets by the prolific folks fly by in one pane, infrequent tweets from people you don’t want to miss stay bookmarked on top in another. You can add or remove modules from TweetDeck’s multi-paned interface to show you all tweets, tweets from groups you configure, replies to your tweets, direct messages, search results for a keyword, and more.
The second most useful feature TweetDeck offers is its excellent replies capability. Unlike the Twitter web site, TweetDeck doesn’t only show you replies that start with @yourusername—it shows you any tweet that contains @yourusername anywhere in the body. Similarly, it can show you a constantly updating search for a particular term, like a search for ‘Lifehacker.’ The more modules you add to TweetDeck, the wider it gets. Here’s a screenshot. (Click on the image to pop up a full-size version.)
Of course, you can resize TweetDeck to whatever width you want—a single column, if you’d like.
TweetDeck can also display all the tweets from the last 48 hours, often more than the Twitter web interface can (when the ‘Older’ button’s disabled, anyway). TweetDeck also has TwitScoop built in, which shows you the most popular keywords appearing on Twitter at the moment, a Twitter status indicator for when the service is down (which is often), and a URL shortener available right below the new tweet entry box. TweetDeck is a free download for all platforms running Adobe AIR.
(Via Lifehacker.)
Here’s something to put a smile on your face on a non-descript Wednesday morning: Thanko’s new Code-Padlock USB protector. Does it use some funky encryption, or a digital keypad interface? No: it uses a physical code-padlocked lid that stops you from plugging in a thumbdrive if you can’t work out the three-digit code. Brilliant, except that a thief will just steal the whole thing and work out the code at their leisure. So it must be aimed at stopping ‘casual eyes’ accessing files you’d rather keep to yourself. Ah… ones with lots of pink pixels—it all becomes clear. You can of course lock up other USB devices, but you’d have to be working in a really mean office environment to need to do that. Yours for about $9. [Akhabaranews]
(Via Gizmodo.)
