LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Watch out Britney, Octomom and Paris! Shows spoofing your fame are piling up faster than celebrity magazines in a hair salon, and they include a stage musical and animated TV programs.”Popzilla,” the latest show to declare open season on Hollywood celebrities and their reality TV kissing cousins, will premiere on cable television’s MTV on Monday.The acerbic newcomers are putting a new twist on the public appetite for celebrity news. Nearly 55 million Americans visited an entertainment news site in May, digital tracking firm comScore said.”Popzilla” was conceived to match the fast-paced, often raunchy celebrity TV news…
Business
Spoof shows turn tables on celebrity obsession
Business
Report: Deutsche Telekom looks for 4G partners in U.S.
German phone giant Deutsche Telekom is looking to jump into the 4G wireless market in the U.S. through partnerships with U.S.-based service providers, according to a report by Bloomberg News.Bloomberg reported Tuesday that Deutsche Telekom is looking to beef up its presence in the U.S. wireless market by investing in Clearwire, a company that is building a 4G wireless network using a technology called WiMax. Sources also told Bloomberg that Deutsche Telekom is also talking to Metro PCS, which recently acquired spectrum to build its 4G wireless network.Deutsche Telekom already owns T-Mobile USA, the fourth-largest wireless carrier in the U.S.…
Hack
New Wii drive hardware emulation
The Wii-Optical-Drive-Emulator (WODE) makes it possible to load Wii and GameCube ISO files from an SD card or USB storage device. This hack uses the ribbon cable for the optical drive to connect to the Wii, requiring no soldering. The WODE is based on an ARM9 processor, runs Linux, and features a backlit LCD screen and 4-way center click joystick. Storage can be hot plugged and then an ISO selected using the stick and LCD display. Selected ISO files appear in the game channel as if an original disc had just been inserted into the drive.
The developers claim…
Hack
Introduction to FTDI bitbang mode
It was an interface that launched a thousand hacks. Near trivial to program, enough I/O lines for useful work, and sufficiently fast for a multitude of applications: homebrew logic analyzers, chip programmers, LCD interfaces and LED light shows, to name a few.
Today the parallel printer port is on the brink of extinction (and good riddance, some would say). Largely rendered obsolete by USB, few (if any) new peripherals even include a parallel connector, and today’s shrinking computers — nettops, netbooks, media center PCs — wouldn’t have space for it anyway. That’s great for tidy desks, but not so…
Software
Download Accelerator Plus 9.3.0.4
The world 39 s most popular download manager provides faster download speed amp greater security bull Download videos from YouTube Facebook and more bull See what the leading antivirus apps say about your files bull Choose between IE and Firefox download stylesDownload Accelerator Plus DAP is the worlds most popular download accelerator giving you the fastest possible download speeds with privacy security and ease of use Allows you to download up to 300 faster with increased reliability resume support and errors recovery It searches for mirror sites that most effectively serve your downloads through multiserver connections for optimal utilization of…
Game
How to build a life-sized electronic game
We’re very impressed with [Steve's] Electronic Snowball Fight game. It consists of two life-sized players standing opposite of each other. Each can throw a snowball or duck, the object is to hit the other person and not get hit yourself. He’s utilized a lot of good building techniques that could be easily adapted to other types of game play.
For the outlines of the players, [Steve] took pictures of himself standing, ducking, and in a throwing motion. Each picture was used to generate an outline which was then stenciled onto some Masonite. He then drilled holes along the outline…
Hack
CableCard card tuners on the way
We were momentarily excited when we heard that CableCARD compatible tuners will be available for purchase by the end of the year. A card like this would allow you to hook up your digital cable to your computer and record programs natively. This has been possible for a long time with analog cable and PVR software such as MythTV. Up to this point, recording digital cable has required a dedicated cable box and workarounds to allow the computer to change channels.
Wait a minute though, the announcement was made by Microsoft? Indeed. Microsoft has been making a big push…
Computer
Nokia Booklet 3G specs
Nokia is my favourite handphones brand. Now, Nokia introduces Booklet 3G ‘mini laptop’. This is first Nokia’s netbook. I think is nice to see a nokia netbook.
Nokia Booklet 3G specifications:
Nokia Booklet 3G comes with premium design with a chassis made from a single piece of machined aluminum (Three different colors at launch: black, ice (white) and azure (blue)). Nokia Booklet 3G uses Intel Atom Z530, 1.6 GHz with Intel Poulsbo US15W, fanless design. The size of this netbook has a thickness (19.9 mm thin), with only 1250 g weight. The Nokia Booklet 3G comes toting a glass 10.1-inch…
Hack
Aluminum iPhone dock
Last week we mentioned an article to cover up that ugly iPod dock; [Jozerworx] did one better by creating his own iPhone dock entirely. He had access to a machine shop where he combined some spare aluminum with an existing iPhone connection cable, but mentions the dock could probably be created with basic hand tools and a power drill. The design is quite minimalist and we would go as far as to say it has that shiny-and-made-by-apple-so-I-have-to-buy-one look. Alternatively, frosted acrylic with some leds would probably look pretty cool too, maybe it would blink whenever there is activity. What…
Internet
Options and Add-ons to Enhance Your New Computer
Technology is a big part of today’s world and it is constantly evolving. Just when it seems it can’t get better, a new development is released and somehow out does what we had before. One area where we have seen the most growth is computer technology.
More and more high-end computers are being produced every day. As technology continues to develop, costs come down, and these top-of-the-line computers become more affordable. If you’ve gotten a new computer recently, you’ll have a lot of options available to make the computing experience even better.
One of the more important additions to a…
Hack
Multi-screen video with Ipod
[Marco Tempest] has developed some software called MultiVid that allows synchronized video across multiple iPhone or iPod Touch devices. For this to work, all of the devices must be connected to the same WiFi network. Playback can be controlled from any one of the iPhones/iPod Touches or from the Mac running the controller software. There is of course the option of connecting to larger monitors through a video output cable. The app also supports OSC. We’ve embedded the example video as well as a video detailing the software setup after the break.
The client software is available at the…
Hack
Custom cable management
You would be hard pressed to find a hacker who doesn’t have in some form a rats nest of wires and cables behind their computer desk. [Antoine] decided to tackle the problem and came up with his custom built cable management system. There is little info, but he does say his setup uses Ikea Antonius coat hangers and some hollow tube. Its quick and wont leave a residue like some cable solutions, so long as you don’t mind a screw hole or two. We especially like how if you need to change your setup you wont have to re-zip…
