Intel unveils processor to run PC as a media centre

World computer chip leader Intel unveiled on Thursday a new processor designed to turn a personal computer into a living room multimedia centre.

Intel's dual-core Viiv processor will be installed in PCs by leading producers including Dell, Sony, LG and Acer, "from today and in the coming weeks," Intel chief executive Paul Otellini announced at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

A Viiv-equipped computer will function as "a media centre in the living room" offering a simple, faster and smoother way for users to access and store online content for watching or listening through other connected devices, Otellini said.

Intel also announced new ventures with other major electronics producers, including Microsoft and online content vendors "to give a richer content experience".

Content partners include NBC television's sports division -- which will be broadcasting the winter Olympics -- internet portal AOL, and Indian film distributor Eros Entertainment.

Intel has also formed Clickstar, together with actor Morgan Freeman's production company Revelations Entertainment, to market premium movies and other programmes over the internet.

World's Largest Plasma Screen.

The Japanese maker of the Panasonic brand said it had developed the world's largest plasma-panel television set with a 103-inch (2.6 meter) screen.

Matsushita Electric Industrial said it had overcome technical difficulties posed by making large plasma screens to develop a prototype 2.3 meters wide and 1.3 meters high.

Until now 102-inch plasma televisions developed by two South Korean companies were the biggest in the world.

Move over, Edison: An efficient light for your home that will never burn out

Not to sound overly dramatic, but the LED (light-emitting diode) is on its way to offing incandescent and fluorescent bulbs. LEDs use a small fraction of the energy of traditional bulbs, don’t flicker and, amazingly, last for decades. That’s because they generate light by moving current through durable semiconductors instead of delicate, super-hot filaments that quickly burn out.

LEDs have been used since the 1960s for indicators such as the on/off light on your stereo. More recently, engineers have found ways to use them everywhere from traffic signals to automotive taillights to video screens. The challenge of producing an LED lamp for the home, though, has been packing enough diodes together to get the illumination of an incandescent in a compact case that won’t overheat.

Mesa, Arizona, lighting manufacturer Enlux responded in two ways. First, it removed diodes from their individual plastic housings and clustered them on the surface of a small circuit board, known as a light engine. The board dissipates more heat than an array of separately packaged bulbs, so more LEDs can be crammed inside the lamp. Second, a finned aluminum housing spreads the heat that is generated over a greater surface area. The 22-watt Flood ($80) gives off about as much brightness as a 45- to 65-watt incandescent and lasts 50,000 hours (35 years at four hours per day). But with companies all over the world chasing Enlux down the LED path, it shouldn’t be long before we get even brighter options.

The 1st one, a little later....

This is one of my 1st articles I ever wrote. I hope you like it.....

A few months ago, my 3 year old came home from school and sang a song that took a while, as it does when they are 3, for us to understand. The song, sung to no specific tune, went as follows, “Makro’s burning, Makro’s burning.” Yep, I live around the corner from one of the 3 Makros that caught fire over the last couple of years. I have interviewed the CEO of Massmart at the Olympic flame procession through Cape Town and I asked him if he didn’t think it was a bit dangerous to allow him to carry an open flame through the city. He didn’t find it funny.

Makro opened it’s doors again this week. For the last month there have been radio and TV ads as only Makro can do. The flyers and leaflets in the postbox and at the traffic lights have been littering the neighborhood for the last couple of weeks but it’s all worth it in the end. They say that the savings are great, that is, if you can actually get into the building. I did manage, after a while, to get in on the first Friday morning. The joys of not actually having a real job, I guess.

Now here is the point of my story. I needed to upgrade the memory card in my digital camera. Once I got into the store, fought the many traffic directors and car guards, got past the security and the really sad ladies that need to get in front of you and into the store first, I made my way to the electronics area. Mr Massmart, if you read this, there is a major trolley jam outside this area, change your system.

After fighting for an assistant or anyone with a little knowledge of the product I was going to buy, I gave up and worked it out myself. There is was, the memory card that would change the way I take photos on my camera. No longer am I limited to taking just 50 low quality pics, no, I can now take 136 very high quality pics, 1406 low quality pictures.
“Who in their right mind will ever need to take that many pics?”, I hear you say.
“Ha.”, I say.
The memory card I bought is 128 Megs. That’s right, over 128 000 000 bytes of information can be stored on a piece of plastic smaller than a postage stamp. The first hard drive for my first computer that, I might add, was state of the art, was 3 times smaller.
I was very proud of my 40 Meg hard-drive. “Who would ever need anything bigger?” I was heard to ask myself. Now we know.

A CD holds 640 Megs of info, if you buy an old one. The newer ones hold 700 Megs. The DVD that I use to back up my computer take 8 times that. I was given a 250 Gig hard drive for back-up too, and even though I have tried and tried, there is no way that I can fill it. Everything, and I mean everything that I have in digital format, has been copied onto the drive and it’s still humming away without breaking a sweat. Music from the SABC library, for work of course, every single picture I have taken for the last year and all my radio bits and pieces. I haven’t used a quarter of the drive yet.
In fact, the Nokia cell phone I have to review, it great by the way, has more on-board memory than original Space Shuttle, Columbia. Of course, that’s in a million pieces over Texas, so maybe that’s not a good example. Suffice to say, I can take 10 minutes of video using my phone or take 114 pictures.

So what’s the point?

Good question. I think that we use it because it is there. Kevin Costner was told, “If you build it, they will come.” Same thing here. We don’t really NEED to be able to take 10 minutes of video on a cell phone, We don’t NEED to have 114 pictures on a digital camera. We do it because we can. Let me tell you here that the memory card I bought for my camera was the smallest there was at Makro. There were ones that held 4 times what I bought. I thought it was overkill.

10 years ago, there was no such thing as a digital camera. We took our pictures, went to the Photofirst and 1 hour later, there we were in all our glory. 36 pictures from our point-and-click and we were happy little bunnies. 10 years ago, not a lifetime.

HP told me that those pictures will have faded so badly by now that we will have to replace them. If you buy one of their new fangled Generation 2 printers to print your new, digital pics, they will last for 110 years before they noticeably fade. Note the word “noticeably.” The old pictures of you mom and dad’s wedding are probably yellowish by now. Do we notice? No, it’s quaint. It shows the photo is old. That’s the point, isn’t it?

What I am trying to say, unsuccessfully, why? Will we be better people with 114 + 114 pictures? Will we have better memories of life if our pictures last longer than we do?

The answer is yes, as long as Makro doesn’t burn down and we can’t buy over priced technology to keep up with the Joneses.

Photographers get two lenses in one: Wide angle or zoom

Eastman Kodak Co. is again using the world's largest trade show for consumer electronics to show off a ground-breaking innovation in digital imaging.

The company on Monday introduced what it bills as the first digital camera with two lenses on its face — one for taking wide-angle photos; the other a standard optical zoom lens.

Adding a second lens and sensor is another attempt by Kodak to make digital photography increasingly consumer-friendly and more functional than film. The dual lens approach makes it easier to capture group photos, scenic landscapes and city pictures in addition to portraits and close-ups, Kodak said.

"You don't need to say 'Squeeze-in!' at family gatherings any more," says Mike McDougall, a Kodak spokesman.

The V570 camera was unveiled in Las Vegas, where the company is preparing for the 2006 International Consumer Electronics Show, the largest trade show of its kind. A year ago, Kodak used the same show to introduce EasyShare-One, a wireless digital camera that allows users to transmit images without first connecting to a personal computer.

More....

Virtual Surf Report: Bonus Link -- Aryan Kaganof's new film, SMS SUGARMAN, the world's first feature film shot exclusively using a cellphone

Here's an exciting piece of breaking news. SMS SUGARMAN, written by, directed by, edited by, starring, cult film phenomenon Aryan Kaganof, has finished shooting, and is in post-production.

How do I know? A cinematographer buddy of mine, Eran Tahor, is the Director of Photography on the film, and we've just had breakfast together. His New Year's party was the wrap event for the film.

He's not allowed to tell me anything at all about the film, apart from hinting that it's going to be somewhat controversial. And he's given me the web address for the film. Head to http://smssugarman.com for more info.

The film will release in May this year, and Eran says the story rocks, and the cinematography is revolutionary.

You saw it here first!

Listen to a full podcast of this Virtual Surf Report. Or listen to all of the shows.

This story first appeared on Coffee-Shop Schmuck.

Virtual Surf Report: Charles Kessler's Cool Tricks & Trinkets Newsletter -- a start of the year treat

It's the last of the Virtual Surf Reports for now, so I thought I'd end off with a delicious treat for you.

Charles Kessler has been putting together a weekly roundup of the most fascinating websites in the world for 383 weeks, and he sends it out free to anyone who wants it.

The website is at www.tricksandtrinkets.com. And to subscribe for free, all you need to do is send a blank email to cooltricks-join-request@list.adventure.com.

I've been on the list for years now, and I've never once received spam as a result of subscribing, and Charles has an iron-rule not to sell users' details to anyone for any reason. (He has 190 000 subscribers, and counting.)

Let's get to some of the nuggets in the latest issue, number 383. These were chosen by his team of staff as their pick of favourite sites of 2005. They write:

Their Circular Life
You will definitely want to visit this website, which is a conceptual mixture of mindful meditation and Flash design. "Their Circular Life: An Exploration About Human Behavior" is an extremely cool project that aims to remind us to slow down our harried lives, to stop, listen, and observe the daily circle of life.

Cows With Guns
Cows give us their milk and their meat, but what do they get in return? Watch this hilarious animated music video that tells the story of revenge during a "Bovine Revolution".

The 48 Laws of Power
It is a cutthroat world out there, whether in the arena of Business, Politics or Romance. Learn valuable if not ruthless tactics from The 48 Laws of Power such as 'Win Through your Actions, Never Through Argument' and 'Crush Your Enemy Totally'.

Yoga With Cats
Kitty seeming a bit stressed lately? Spare your furniture and bliss out together at Yoga Kitty, a "practical guide" for people and pusses who seek to achieve physical, mental and spiritual ecstasy, without drugs or catnip.
In free instructional videos for clearing past karma, tapping electromagnetism and meditating, Yogi Karl and partner Yogi Ovaria -- the original Yogakitty -- show viewers how to adjust their shakras in seriocomic scenes that will have you cracking up even while the cat shreds another pillow. "Purr-fect Yoga" items are available in the online shop, like tee-shirts with the site's slogan: "Higher Consciousness, It's Not Just for Humans Anymore."

Visit Cool Tricks & Trinkets and browse through the archives for 383 weeks worth of amusing, amazing, delicious tidbits. It should keep you occupied for at least a year.

Listen to a full podcast of this report. Or listen to all of the Virtual Surf Reports.

This post originally appeared on Coffee-Shop Schmuck.