ARIA have released figures that show for 2003, album sales have reached an all time high. In fact, according to Peter Martin, who recently went on Australian radio, before file sharing and CD burning they were selling 10 million less. Total unit sales were also at an all time high at 65.6 million. CD single sales declined 1.9 million over the year, but as Peter said file downloading is doing a better job. Should help Kazaa’s legal problems. Some independent music stores are thriving despite the competition from illegal downloads on the Internet. The stores are finding that file sharing can help create a buzz online that can lead to more sales, according to a panel of independent music store owners who spoke at the South by Southwest Music Conference & Festival
The Panasonic ruggedised Toughbook, a laptop that, in its most extreme configuration, can survive being run over by a truck. Those boxes cost $5000, but a semi-ruggedised
version, which is speced with spill-resistant keyboards, hard casings, and gel-encased disk drives
is only 10% more costly to build than a standard machine. Analysts say 20% of mainstream laptops fail in the first year, usually because of accidental damage. That rises to 35% once a notebook leaves its docking station and to more than 50% for machines that are used outdoors or on shop floors. But the failure rate of rugged or semi-rugged machines is just 5%
Vocera Communications have an internal communication system working at their office that functions like the badge communicators from ST:TNG. The employees wear the system as a badge and touch it to start the connection. Then they speak the name of the person they want to talk to and the system connects them using VOIP for one-on-one communication
A handful of Bagle worm variants are attacking Windows users with an insidious new twist: They can infect computers without tricking them into opening a file attachment — opening an e-mail is all it takes
At 22mm, Toshiba’s prototype of its latest multi-gigabyte hard disk drive is the smallest in the world — at least as of this moment
Telstra will be forced to change its wholesale ADSL pricing or face fines worth millions of dollars for anti-competitive behaviour
NASA has developed a computer program that comes close to reading thoughts not yet spoken by analysing nerve commands to the throat. It says the breakthrough holds promise for astronauts and the handicapped. A person using the subvocal system thinks of phrases and talks to himself so quietly it cannot be heard, but the tongue and vocal cords do receive speech signals from the brain. Developer Chuck Jorgensen’s team at NASA’s Ames Research Centre, Moffett Field, California, found that sensors under the chin and one each side of the Adam’s apple pick up the brain’s commands to the speech organs, allowing the subauditory, or silent speech
to be captured
Yes Strong Bads 100th email is truly an acheivement worthy of widescreen WOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!
Also contained in this momentous e-mail is how Strong Bad and Homestar Runner met and the birth of The Cheat. Stick around after Strong Bad says ’email’ 100 times and see well wishes from Marzipan, Homestar, Ye Olde Strong Bad, freaky Strong Bad and Limozeen!
Reducing the cost of iPods, Aluminum displays?
Aluminium display to compliment your shiny G5 hey? Yeah that sounds like something Apple would bring out. As for the size, yeah 24 inch also sounds quite believable. I drooled over a G5 in person on Monday. It’s a huge beast truly worthy of an equally huge display, I mean the 20 or 23 inch cinema display (I can’t remember which one it was. ‘Twas big ‘n’ shiny) it was hooked up to was actually looking a bit small! (Nah man, for real! Yes I know a 20 inch display certainly dwarfs my piss-weak 17 inch Phillips thing running some mediocre graphics card at work, but… yeah…).
Anyhow, the lovely translucentness of the cinema displays don’t quite compliment the G5 as much as I’m sure it could, or at least that was my feeling after seeing this setup in person.
XServe and iMac G5s, Mac OS X 10.3.3, notebook displays
iMac G5s? Lets get the Power Books happening first shall we? But then again, Apple might want to hurry along the roll out of the Intel based G5 chip. Hmmm…
Sources comment on Power Mac, Power Book updates
Stop teasing already!
Wanted: old socks, ripped, without partners, and of any size or colour
. Offered: a telephone pole. Wanted: a chicken coop, a doghouse, a barn. Offered: Excellent quality landscaping rocks. Organic lemons will be given away to those who take the rocks as an extra bonus.
Freecycle is using the Internet as a way to make connections and fall into riches at the same time. In this case, the treasure comes in the form of someone else’s trash. Freecycle is now available in Australia
The bare-bones chassis of the Xoxide X-UFO Ultimate Aluminium Cube Case includes three large acrylic windows, cut-outs for a mind-numbing eleven fans, chrome front-panel switches, and a set of medium-duty casters. You can remove the drive bays, the motherboard tray, and the backplane, and Xoxide plans to offer interchangeable drive bay modules for buyers who prefer different configurations. All three acrylic panes are fitted into the case’s U-shaped wraparound cover, which removes them from harm’s way whenever you work inside
Federal welfare agency Centrelink has paid more than $5.3 million for a web content engine and two relatively simple web applications
Researchers from the Johns Hopkins University have built electronic circuits which exhibit a rubbery behaviour. The flexible circuits, built by using gold springs, can stretch like rubber. And Nature says that these stretchy wires can be used to create artificial nerves bending inside our bodies or wearable electronics. Wiring like this could be woven into stretchy sports clothing and used to connect up sensors that monitor athletic performance. Rubbery electrodes made from biocompatible materials might be attached to a beating heart and used to sense impending problems
A significant portion
of people who use Hotmail and other internet-based products had trouble accessing the services for more than 24 hours on the weekend
Telstra’s worst fears are about to be realised, with rival Vodafone planning to unleash a price war in the $10 billion a year Australian mobile phone market which will see the cost of mobile calls fall to the same level as local calls
With 21 million items listed on its Web site every day, it is easy to tell why eBay has become a favourite target for organised e-scams in Australia
ClearPC‘s Secret Agent PC case is a transparent acrylic PC case shaped like a briefcase. Great for LAN parties and airport security
Ever wanted to match the look of your HTML forms with the rest of your web site? This article demonstrates how to apply customised backgrounds to HTML forms, while preserving structurally clean markup and accessibility — via Delirious Cool
A very cool CSS tutorial that comes packaged with CSS software program, Style Master. By working through the exercises you will learn all about CSS for text styling and page appearance including layout, and create a stylish looking page — via Web-Graphics
Telstra will signal the most radical change to its national networks in 100 years as early as today with the start of a trial of fibre optic technology into Queensland homes. A national rollout would cost billions of dollars but Telstra would first use the technology in new housing developments as it evaluates the gradual replacement of its copper network. The replacement of its entire copper network is likely to take decades
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