Zune 30GB brickification acknowledged, Microsoft says to wait it out

For all of you Zune 30 owners who woke up this morning to find your PMP frozen in despair at the thought of spending another year alone, Microsoft has finally acknowledged their boo-boo and explains it thusly: There is a bug in the internal clock driver causing the device to choke on the last day of a leap year. Rest assured, however -- although they may not be releasing an update for the device any time soon, the issue should resolve itself whenever January 1, 2009 rolls around. So have a safe and happy New Year, and let's hope they do something about this by 2012.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Zune 30GB brickification acknowledged, Microsoft says to wait it out originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 31 Dec 2008 18:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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December 31st, 2008 - Posted in Uncategorized | | Comments Off

Is the Yellowstone Supervolcano About To Blow?

An anonymous reader writes "Apparently, Yellowstone National Park has been having a very unusual number of earthquakes. Many of the most recent tremors have been deeper underground, an ominous sign. Combine that with a rapid rise in elevation over the past three years, and the possibility that earthquake activity from surrounding areas could trigger such an eruption on its own, and you've got the possible warning signs of a supervolcano eruption that would wipe out half to 2/3 of the continental US, plunge global temperatures, and wipe out a very significant chunk of world food sources. Here's a little more info to make your New Year brighter!"

Optoma’s DLP PK101 pico projector up for pre-order at $399.99

"Coming soon," huh? Soon, indeed. Optoma's DLP-based pico projector, which is formally known as the EP-PK-101 (or PK101 in some circles), is now up for pre-order at Amazon. So, just how much will you pay for a 4-ounce beamer that you can carry in your left front pocket? If your answer is anything less than $399.99, you're out of luck here.

[Via I4U News]

Filed under: Displays

Optoma's DLP PK101 pico projector up for pre-order at $399.99 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 31 Dec 2008 18:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ubiquity Gets an Update: A Prettier and Faster Command Line for Firefox

Ubiquity, the experimental Firefox addon that gives your browser a context sensitive command-line, just received a nice update from Mozilla. In this new version, Mozilla has mostly worked on making Ubiquity faster, but also added a new look and the ability to use different skins. The plugin now also sorts commands by relevancy, based on how often you use a given command.

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Prettier and Faster

The new UI adds a more elegant way of displaying results and the ability to edit the UI, but the main difference between this version and the last update is that the plugin is now indeed noticeably faster.

When Mozilla first launched Ubiquity, we gave it a rave review, and it has quickly become one of our favorite Firefox plugins. Our own Sarah Perez called it a "whole new UI for Firefox."

A Command Line for Firefox

If you are not familiar with Ubiquity, the addon gives you the ability to quickly type commands into Firefox. You can, for example, update your Twitter status by invoking the command line by pressing 'ctrl-space" (or 'option-space' if you are on a Mac) and then type 'twitter [message].' Or you can search Google by simply typing 'g [search term].' Search results appear right in the Ubiquity UI. For a complete list of commands, just type 'command-list' after installing the extension.

If you want to try out Ubiquity, also have a look at the list of installable Ubiquity verbs we compiled earlier this year.

Discuss

December 31st, 2008 - Posted in Uncategorized | | Comments Off

Capitol Records Flooded Internet With MP3s, Says MP3Tunes CEO

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In court papers filed in New York in Capitol Records v. MP3Tunes, the CEO of MP3Tunes, Michael Robertson, has accused the plaintiffs EMI, Capitol Records, and other EMI record labels of flooding the internet with free MP3s of their songs for promotional purposes, 'free to everyone (except, apparently, MP3tunes).' His 10-page declaration (PDF) provides exact details of specific song files, including the URLs from which they are being distributed free of charge, both by paid content distributors, and by EMI itself from its own web sites."

Serv O’Beer with iPhone for the perfect pour

Steve writes in -

Serv O'Beer is a project showing you step by step how to turn a bottle of beer using Construx, servo, and an ioBridge module. The system uses the accelerometer feedback to turn the servo controlling the position of the bottle. Enjoy the perfect pour while taking out all of the physically demanding work. Happy New Year and Cheers!

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Fish deboning gadget

Despite the silly name the Wunder Boner looks like a useful gadget for people who like to catch and eat fish. Do you think it works as advertised? (Via Arbroath)

December 31st, 2008 - Posted in Uncategorized | | Comments Off

Fish deboning gadget

December 31st, 2008 - Posted in Uncategorized | | Comments Off

Famed Malibu beach is disappearing under rising sea

Broad-Beach

Malibu homeowners with houses overlooking Broad Beach are fighting two battles. The first one is against public-access activists, who accuse homeowners of illegally using private security guards keep the public off the beach. The second battle is against a rising sea level that has reduced the beach to a mere sliver. The LA Times reports with a story and video. The sandbagging efforts shown in the video seem futile.

Sandwiched between the advancing sea and coastal armor built to protect multimillion-dollar homes, the strip of sand is being swept away by waves and tides. Soon, oceanographers and coastal engineers contend, the rising ocean will eclipse the clash between the beach-going public and the private property owners: There will be no dry sand left to fight over.
...
"These folks in these overly rich communities will be sipping their martinis during some big El Niño and watching their backyards disappear in 5-feet chunks," [Bill Patzert, a climatologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory] said. "In the end, Mother Nature and global warming will win. No matter how much concrete they pour, all of those sea walls and houses will end up in the ocean."

Malibu's vanishing Broad Beach a sign of rising sea levels, experts say*

(*Note: Michael Leddy of Orange Crate Art had a funny post a while back about news headlines with the words "experts say" in them.)